Château Latour

Les Forts de Latour, Pauillac, 2005

Name: Les Forts de Latour, Pauillac
Brand: Château Latour
Price: 1961.47 GBP

93/100

Inside Bordeaux

93/100

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

94/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 1998 2004 2005 2006 2008 2017 2018 2019

delivery

in bond

Broking

2005
12x75cl
DP
£1,961.47
2005
6x1.5L
DP
£2,033.47

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Two bits of good news for lovers of this pre-eminent second label: first, the wine is very good indeed, though closed for the moment; it exhibits signs of dark fruit with coal dust minerality and spice, grippy tannins and a big structure, weighty but at the same time fresh and vibrant. Secondly, there will be slightly more of it in 2005 because of vineyard purchases made in 2005.

delivery information

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

93/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

Crushed blackberries, wild strawberries, white truffles and leather, this is fully open and at a great moment to drink, just heading towards tertiary character. Easily one of the most consistently impressive 2nd wines in Bordeaux, Forts de Latour was launched under Henri Martin and Jean-Paul Gardère in 1966, and at one point in its history there was even a discussion about it becoming part of a revised 1855 classification. What's for sure is that this is a great vintage to discover it if you haven't so far. 100% new oak for ageing.

drinking window 2025 - 2035

date of review 06/2025

94/100

Antonio Galloni,

Vinous

Open-knit yet deep and powerful, the 2005 Les Forts de Latour is striking today. The pedigree of the vintage comes through in spades. Expressive, perfumed aromatics meld into a core of supple, open-knit fruit in a mid-weight, impeccably balanced Forts de Latour. Hints of red fruit, iron, smoke and tobacco add lovely shades of nuance. Latour's President Frédéric Engerer adds that that 2005 was the easiest and most balanced growing season (including 2009 and 2010) he has seen because his team had the total flexibility of choosing when to harvest.

drinking window 2016 - 2025

date of review 07/2016

93/100

Robert Parker,

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2005 Les Forts de Latour is another beautiful wine from this estate. Medium to full-bodied, with a dense ruby/purple color, loads of blackcurrant fruit, earth, and spice, the wine is extremely pure, broad, savory, and quite expensive. This is a fabulous second wine, but in essence, this is really of classified growth quality. Drink it over the next 20+ years.

drinking window 2015 - 2035

date of review 06/2015

product details

Specifications

Country:

Region:

Appellation:

Producer:

style:

Grape Variety:

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.