critic reviews
The 2019 Les Forts de Latour has an open nose, strangely perhaps a little more expressive than the 2020 Pauillac de Latour at the moment. Scents of blackberry, cassis and iris flower unfold in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with crushed stone infusing the black fruit. This has attained more linearity since I encountered it in January 2023. The 2019 will give two or three decades of pleasurable drinking.
The 2019 Les Forts de Latour has an open nose, strangely perhaps a little more expressive than the 2020 Pauillac de Latour at the moment. Scents of blackberry, cassis and iris flower unfold in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with crushed stone infusing the black fruit. This has attained more linearity since I encountered it in January 2023. The 2019 will give two or three decades of pleasurable drinking.
Inky, great depths with a vivid violet rim, this is exceptional, balanced and full of character. Coming out of its serious early years, showing fleshy plum, damson and cassis fruits, along with graphite, slate, fennel and toast. If you like your wines particuarly powerful, you can go for it now and over the next few years, but it will age for a good few decades from here. Chiselled, very much speaking of its Pauillac heritage. 70% new oak for ageing, 39% of Latour's production in this vintage. Hélène Genin technical director, second year certified organic.
The 2019 Les Forts de Latour opens in the glass with aromas of cassis, wild berries, sweet spices, cigar wrapper and a deft application of creamy new oak. Full-bodied, layered and velvety, its a deep, muscular wine with rich tannins, lively acids and a long, resonant finish. As readers will know, it mostly derives from dedicated parcels located further inland from Latour's famous "Enclos," next to Chateau Haut-Batailley. It's a fabulous effort that would clearly merit classified growth status in its own right were the 1855 classification ever to be revised.