chateau lafite rothschild 1er cru classe pauillac

Château Lafite Rothschild, 1er Cru Classé, Pauillac, 2018

Name: Château Lafite Rothschild, 1er Cru Classé, Pauillac
Brand: Château Lafite Rothschild
Price: 3081.53 GBP

98/100

Inside Bordeaux

100/100

The Wine Independent

96/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

delivery

in bond

portfolio

Last Few
2018
6x75cl
DP
£5,061.53

Broking

2018
6x75cl
DP
£3,081.53

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Jean Guillaume Prats is already making his mark at Domaine Barons de Rothschild. After a series of slightly lacklustre wines, Lafite and co are back firing on all cylinders. Those who have perused our notes for Carruades and Duhart Milon will know that we are back in love with the DBR wines, and the flag bearer, Chateau Lafite more than confirmed the resurgence of these properties. This is a grand and cerebral Lafite, and arguably the best of the First Growths. Initially inaccessible, with air the regal bouquet begins to emerge. It's all present, but rather impenetrable. It's a noble melting pot of violets, molten metals, sumptuous cool cassis, spice and sweet detailed strawberries. Immensely handsome and aloof, you immediately sense the class. On the palate there is tremendous restraint. Yes, this is a giant of a wine with huge concentration and energy, yet it retains a calm authority, beautifully layered fruit, precise, fine grained tannins, nuanced with vibrant fruit and stones. Those tannins really caress the palate and allow the noble gravelly flavours to linger effortlessly in the mouth. A magnificent Lafite. 91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8.5% Merlot and 0.5% Petit Verdot.

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GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

100/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

The 2018 Lafite Rothschild is deep garnet-purple in color. It needs a little swirling to unlock notes of baked plums, boysenberry preserves, and crème de cassis, with touches of menthol, Indian spices and smoked meats. Medium to full-bodied, the palate delivers mouth-filling, spicy black fruits with velvety tannins and a long, energetic finish.

drinking window 2028 - 2068

date of review 02/2023

98/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Silky and powerful, carefully delineated cassis and blueberry fruits, along with slate and liqourice. The tannins are in evidence but already showing a creaminess that cradles the fruit through the mid palate. I said this during En Primeur and during the first round of in bottle tastings, but this wine is remarkable for remaining so balanced and steady in a vintage that saw many neighbouring estates affected by the dry summer. Here instead you get floral aromatics with hints of raspberry leaf and honeysuckle, along with the classic graphite smoke. Muscular with coiled power, undoubtedly it will close down over the next five years, and then need a good decade to open back up. 3.75pH. 40hl/ha yield. 40% of the production went into the grand vin. Tannin index 74IPT. Retasted at an estate vertical July 2021.

drinking window 2028 - 2050

date of review 10/2021

96/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2018 Lafite-Rothschild comes in an embossed bottle to celebrate 150 years of ownership by the de Rothschild family. Typical of this First Growth, there is nothing gaudy or showy on the nose; instead, sensual, almost placid aromas of tobacco and pencil-shaving-tinged black fruit unfold gently in the glass. Less extroverted than the 2018 Mouton, this is sophisticated and cerebral. As I found before, it only gains vigor after 60 minutes. The palate is beautifully balanced with finely chiseled tannins, pure black fruit and those traits of cracked black pepper and sage extant. I once thought it might challenge the 2016 with bottle age, and though I feel that the 2018 is not quite at that level, it is certainly a wine befitting the anniversary. Lafite-Rothschild, masterfully proving how less is more.

drinking window 2025 - 2060

date of review 03/2021

product details

Specifications

Country:

France

Region:

Bordeaux

Appellation:

Pauillac

Producer:

Château Lafite Rothschild

style:

Red Wine

Grape Variety:

Cab Sauvignon Merlot

abv:

13%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.