2009 Château Latour, Pauillac, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
Ideal with a 3-hour carafe.
Classic Pauillac power and finesse, packed with brambled fruits, hedgerow earthiness, exuberant while being controlled and carefully delivered. This has shoulders and backbone, and is impossible to ignore. Still in its primary phase so zero need to rush, but you are going to get more joy from this 2009 than you will with the 2010 vintage for at least the next five years. Penelope Godefroy technical director at the time, 100% new oak. Although they had not begun conversion at this point, things were moving in that direction - horses had been reintroduced within the vineyard as of 2008, and all chemical weedkillers had been stopped in the 1990s. The first biodynamic experiments took place in this vintage, but just over 3ha of vines.
Drink 2021 - 2046
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (May 2021)
The 2009 Latour is endowed with a simply magnificent nose with intense blackberry and cassis fruit laced with minerals and graphite, extremely focused to the point of overwhelming the sense. Wow. The palate is medium-bodied with filigree tannin, multilayered black fruit infused with crushed stone and a hint of white pepper, though it clams up towards the finish as if to say, not yet. Outstanding. This is Latour firing on all cylinders.
Drink 2032 - 2070
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (March 2019)
A 91/9 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot; 13.7% alcohol; 87 IPT; roughly 38% of the total crop.
Purple ruby. Flamboyant red cherry, cassis, graphite and cedar aromas soar from the glass. Then, it is very dense, supple, and smooth, with a noble texture and great breadth to its red cherry, blackcurrant, spicy plum, ink, and cedar flavours. Finishes with exceptionally velvety tannins and a very ripe, almost perfumed quality to the red and black fruit flavours.
It is a large-scale and great wine that calls to mind a combination of the 1982 and 2005 Latours. That said, while this wine shares some of the 2009 Mouton's voluptuous perfume, it lacks the extraordinary finesse of the 2009 Lafite or Margaux but is much more powerful than both. Millionaires will have much fun comparing the first growths of 2009 and arguing over which is the best.
Ian D'Agata, Vinous.com (May 2010)
As usual, this is a notably backward wine but shows huge potential. Complex, saline, mineral nose. Very dry as opposed to sweet. Not very typical of this extremely ripe vintage but admirable even if far from ready. The most youthful wine in this tasting.
Drink 2026 - 2050
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (February 2024)
Deep garnet coloured, the 2009 Latour is unashamedly youthful with bold blackcurrants, black cherries and warm plums notes plus nuances of cedar chest, aniseed, beef drippings, truffles and tapenade with a waft of tilled black soil. Full, concentrated and powerful in the mouth, it has a rock-solid frame of super ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic freshness, finishing very long and wonderfully minerally. Just a baby—this needs time!
Drink 2022 - 2080
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate (March 2019)
Dark and chocolatey with a lot of richness, but also a cool herbal freshness this is a very impressive Medoc wine that's already delicious to drink. Very long, surprisingly supple finish for this château. It's a perfect wine.
Drink or hold
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (October 2019)
A blend of 91.3% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8.7% Merlot with just under 14% natural alcohol, the 2009 Latour is basically a clone of the super 2003, only more structured and potentially more massive and long lived. An elixir of momentous proportions, it boasts a dense purple colour and an extraordinarily flamboyant bouquet of black fruits, graphite, crushed rocks, subtle oak and a notion of wet steel.
It hits the palate with a thundering concoction of thick, juicy blue and black fruits, lead pencil shavings and a chalky minerality. Full-bodied but very fresh with a finish that lasts over a minute, this is one of the most remarkable young wines I have ever tasted. Will it last one hundred years? No doubt about it. Can it be drunk in a decade? For sure.
Drink 2022 - 2080
Robert M. Parker, Jr., Wine Advocate (December 2011)
The hot, dry summer of 2009 produced a somewhat burly wine that seems riper and almost sweeter than the 2010 vintage, although it lacks a bit of the tension and freshness of the 2010. The result is fleshy and dense, with an almost fearsome depth of flavour. The texture suggests that this wine has the substance to age for decades, while the approachable character means that it should open up before the 2010 vintage. In 2009, the picking lasted from 23rd September through to 10th October, and the final blend was over 90% Cabernet Sauvignon, with the balance being Merlot; neither Cabernet Franc nor Petit Verdot made an appearance in the grand vin.
Drink 2032 - 2082
Charles Curtis, Decanter.com (March 2022)
An incredible wine in every way, the 2009 Château Latour displays the ripe, sexy vintage style while still offering classic Latour power, density, and regalness. Currants, spicy wood, smoked tobacco, graphite, and ample minerality all define the bouquet, and it's full-bodied, with incredible density, perfectly integrated, ripe, polished tannins, and a finish that leaves no doubt about the insane quality of this wine.
Based on 91.3% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8.7% Merlot, and checking in at 13.7% alcohol, it's drinking brilliantly today, given its incredible texture and balance, and I suspect it has another 50-60 years of prime drinking. This is as good a Bordeaux as I've had and is as good as wine gets.
Drink 2022 - 2082
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2022)
About this WINE
Château Latour
Château Latour is a wine estate in Pauillac, part of the Haut-Medoc sub-region on the Left Bank of Bordeaux. The estate’s history dates back to at least the 14th century, though vineyards were not established here until the 17th century. The estate is located at the southern edge of the Pauillac appellation, bordering the St Julien vineyards of Château Léoville Las Cases. Latour is one of the five First Growths of the 1855 classification, occupying the top tier alongside Châteaux Lafite Rothschild, Margaux, Haut-Brion, and Mouton Rothschild.
Latour is owned by François Pinault, one of France’s wealthiest people. It forms the jewel in the crown of Pinault’s Artémis Domaines, itself part of the larger Groupe Artémis. Other wineries within the portfolio include Clos de Tart and Domaine d’Eugénie in Burgundy; Château Grillet in the Rhône Valley; Champagne Jacquesson; Eisele Vineyard in California’s Napa Valley; and Maisons et Domaines Henriot, which includes holdings in Champagne, Burgundy, and Oregon.
The day-to-day running of Latour is entrusted to the dynamic Frédéric Engerer. Under his stewardship, a major programme of investment has taken place. In 2012, Latour announced that it would no longer offer its wines as part of the Bordeaux En Primeur campaign. Instead, the wines are kept at the estate until such a time as they are ready to be opened and enjoyed. They are then offered through the La Place de Bordeaux distribution system several years after the vintage.
There are three wines produced here. Château Latour, the grand vin, is produced from vines immediately surrounding the château, from the vineyard area known as L’Enclos. Les Forts de Latour, the second wine, was created in 1966. It is now regarded as a great wine in its own right, certainly worthy of Classified Growth status. A third wine, Pauillac de Latour, is usually the product of young vines.
The vineyard is planted to a majority of Cabernet Sauvignon, along with some Merlot and small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
Pauillac
Pauillac is the aristocrat of the Médoc boasting boasting 75 percent of the region’s First Growths and with Grand Cru Classés representing 84 percent of Pauillac's production.
For a small town, surrounded by so many familiar and regal names, Pauillac imparts a slightly seedy impression. There are no grand hotels or restaurants – with the honourable exception of the establishments owned by Jean-Michel Cazes – rather a small port and yacht harbour, and a dominant petrochemical plant.
Yet outside the town, , there is arguably the greatest concentration of fabulous vineyards throughout all Bordeaux, including three of the five First Growths. Bordering St Estèphe to the north and St Julien to the south, Pauillac has fine, deep gravel soils with important iron and marl deposits, and a subtle, softly-rolling landscape, cut by a series of small streams running into the Gironde. The vineyards are located on two gravel-rich plateaux, one to the northwest of the town of Pauillac and the other to the south, with the vines reaching a greater depth than anywhere else in the Médoc.
Pauillac's first growths each have their own unique characteristics; Lafite Rothschild, tucked in the northern part of Pauillac on the St Estèphe border, produces Pauillac's most aromatically complex and subtly-flavoured wine. Mouton Rothschild's vineyards lie on a well-drained gravel ridge and - with its high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon - can produce (in its best years) Pauillac's most decadently rich, fleshy and exotic wine.
Latour, arguably Bordeaux's most consistent First Growth, is located in southern Pauillac next to St Julien. Its soil is gravel-rich with superb drainage, and Latour's vines penetrate as far as five metres into the soil. It produces perhaps the most long-lived wines of the Médoc.
Recommended Châteaux
Ch. Lafite-Rothschild, Ch. Latour, Ch. Mouton-Rothschild, Ch. Pichon-Longueville Baron, Ch. Pichon Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, Ch. Lynch-Bages, Ch. Grand-Puy-Lacoste, Ch, Pontet-Canet, Les Forts de Latour, Ch. Haut-Batailley, Ch. Batailley, Ch. Haut-Bages Libéral.
Cabernet Sauvignon blend
Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.
In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.
In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and Australia.
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Description
Perfect. Simply perfect. We contemplated leaving a note, as we didn’t know how to describe this astonishing wine. The balance between power and finesse, the hugely concentrated black/red juice, the ridiculously fine-textured tannins, and the incredible length took our breath away. It is one of the finest wines we have ever tasted En Primeur, eclipsing even its fabulous 2005 predecessor. Pure. Precise. Perfect.
Berry Bros. & Rudd
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