Château Smith Haut Lafitte
Château Smith Haut Lafitte, Grand Cru Classé, Pessac Léognan, 2023
96/100
Inside Bordeaux
94-96/100
The Wine Independent
94-96/100
Vinous
Available Vintages
En primeur
2023
6x75cl
EP
£540.00
Justerini & Brooks Tasting note
A claret fit for a King. The Cathiards were visited by Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camillain 2023. The resulting wine is suitably regal with a gorgeous perfume of freshly cut flowers, cedar, crushed rocks, spices, and beautifully fragrant black cherry and mulberries. There's a very impressive core of bittersweet fruit and graphite, very clear fruited with a wash of velvety creme de cassis inflected with earthy minerals. Texturally this is very impressive with a seamless delivery of fruit and a composed, graceful, tannic frame. Polished but with classical elements, this is a beautifully measured SHL, which feels harmonious and very classy. Bravo. 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot, aged in 60% new oak barrels.
delivery information
GUARANTEED PROVENANCE
DELIVERY
How much is delivery
Delivery is free to mainland Great Britain and other bonded warehouses for orders over £200 (inc. VAT) in value. For orders under the value of £200 destined for mainland Great Britain there is a delivery charge of £18 (inc. VAT).
All deliveries to mainland Great Britain coming from Cellarers will incur a delivery charge of £24 (inc. VAT). Cellarers Storage Charges.
Where are the wines stored and are they fully insured whilst in storage?
We store clients’ wines with a subsidiary company called Cellarers (Wines) Ltd, which is wholly owned by Justerini & Brooks but where clients’ wines are segregated from our own stock. The wines are stored at Octavian's industry-leading underground cellars in Corsham, Wiltshire, UK. All wines stored with Cellarers are individually labelled with clients’ details and are insured to current market value.
Can I ship outside of mainland Great Britain?
We offer regular shipments to Hong Kong from £90 per 9L case and £62 per 4.5L case. A discounted rate of £72 per 9L case may apply when shipping five or more cases to one address. Deliveries usually take approximately three weeks.
For deliveries to destinations other than mainland Great Britain or Hong Kong, please contact the Customer Relationship Team via email on justbrooksorders@justerinis.com for a quote.
Why can’t I request delivery of certain wines?
Most often, the reason you cannot request delivery of certain wines is that they are still ‘En Primeur’ and not yet in the country. Once they land in the UK, they will be available for Duty Paid Delivery. Click here for more information on buying En Primeur.
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
94-96/100
Lisa Perrotti-Brown,
The Wine Independent
A blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot, the 2023 Smith Haut Lafitte is aging in 60% new oak and it is opaque purple-black in color. It needs a bit of shaking to brink forth an eruption of blackcurrant preserves, ripe plums, and baked black cherries, leading to hints of chocolate mint, violets, and unsmoked cigars, with a waft of pencil shavings. The medium to full-bodied palate is taut with muscular black fruits, delivering a solid frame of firm, grainy tannins and well-knit freshness, finishing long and earthy.
drinking window 2029 - 2050
date of review 05/2024
96/100
Jane Anson,
Inside Bordeaux
Cabernet dominant in terms of aromatics and weight through the palate, opening with fennel, sage, violets, peonies, squid ink, cocoa bean, espresso, with the texture softening and becoming creamier through the mid palate. The hidden depths and slow build that elevates the always-seductive character of Smith Haut-Lafitte into one of the truly exceptional wines of Bordeaux are fully on display. Wine director Fabien Teitgen on his 28th vintage at the estate - and this is the vintage where King Charles and Camilla visited the property, so it comes with a commemorative label. 26hl/h yield, harvest September 8 to October 5.
drinking window 2031 - 2048
date of review 05/2024
94-96/100
Neal Martin,
Vinous
The 2023 Smith Haut Lafitte comes with a label celebrating the visit of King Charles III that year, though I presume it was not his advice to include more Cabernet Sauvignon (70%). It was cropped at 26hL/ha. Matured in 60% new oak, it has a lovely bouquet with blackberry, wild strawberry, crushed violet and light oyster shell scents. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit, gentle grip, fine depth and a sapid, classically lined finish. One of the more structured Smith Haut Lafittes in recent years, it deserves four or five years in bottle. Excellent.
drinking window 2029 - 2059
date of review 04/2024
product details
Specifications
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.
you may also like
Shop All wines
our sales offices
Burlington Arcade
London
Edinburgh
Hong Kong
15th Floor, No 5B-6A
The Centrium
60 Wyndham Street
Central, Hong Kong
JustHongKong@justerinis.com
61 St. James's Street, London SW1A 1LZ
Reg. Company No: 68576
AWRS URN: XPAW00000105319
Please do not share with anyone under the legal purchase age for alcohol.
Drink Responsibly www.drinkiq.com
© Justerini & Brooks 2024. All Rights Reserved.