2017 Les Forts de Latour, Pauillac, Bordeaux
Critics reviews
6.7% press wine. Hélène Genin techincal director, harvest September 11 to October 4. Hold +2 years or carafe for 2 hours.
With a floral curl on the first nose, this is an attractive and sappy Forts de Latour with a fine, elegant, almost chalky aspect to the tannins. Thoroughly charming raspberry and blackberry fruit, fresh earth, cocoa powder and slate, with a mouthwatering finish. There is an elegant feel to this, more evolved than in bigger vintages at the six-year stage, although still with clear architecture to the tannins. As you sit with it, you start to realise how carefully it is gripping through the palate and how fine a wine it is. As with many in Pauillac, Latour found the September rains of 2017 challenging, and two of the plots normally used for the main estate wine are in Forts this year.
Drink 2023 - 2038
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (February 2023)
The 2017 Les Forts de Latour conveys airiness on the nose, reflecting the relatively lightest vintage in recent years. Graphite and sous-bois infuse black fruit, offering a slightly welcome herbaceous/undergrowth tincture. The palate is very well-balanced and will appeal to those seeking a sleeker, lighter style of Pauillac. Not lean by any account, but this Les Fort de Latour is understated, with appealing black pepper and tobacco notes emerging on the finish. Fine.
Drink 2023 - 2040
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (March 2023)
Powerful and dark in the glass, the 2017 Les Forts de Latour is super-impressive. Black cherry, plum, spice, chocolate and leather are just some of the many aromas and flavours that flesh out as this ample, heady Pauillac shows off its considerable personality. Medium in body, yet with terrific depth and substance, the Forts de Latour is an absolute winner in 2017.
Drink 2025 - 2042
Antonio Galloni, Vinous.com (March 2020)
The 2017 Les Forts de Latour comprises 65.2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 1% Petit Verdot, and 0.8% Cabernet Franc.
Deep garnet in colour, it comes galloping out with bold notions of warm cassis, blackberry pie, dried roses, and suggestions of crushed rocks, wild sage, and underbrush. The medium-bodied palate is completely filled with delicate waves of bright, refreshing black and red berry layers, supported by super-ripe, super-fine tannins, finishing long and perfumed. This is stunning!
Drink 2022 - 2045
Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate (March 2020)
65.2% Cabernet Sauvignon, 33% Merlot, 0.8% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. IPT 64. 45.4% of total production.
Very dark with a black core. Extremely pure cassis nose. Tight and dark, and savoury on the palate with dark graphite freshness. Very fine texture, dry but not drying. Paper layers of subtle tannins build density but shoot through with a pure cassis scent. Extremely moreish and fresh. Long and scented on the finish.
Drink 2027 - 2037
Julia Harding MW, JancisRobinson.com (April 2018)
Aromas of minty berries, cassis and plums mingle with hints of pencil shavings to introduce the 2017 Les Forts de Latour, a medium to full-bodied, suave and elegant wine with attractive depth and purity of fruit, supple tannins and a bright, precise profile. This is a classy Les Forts that will offer a broad drinking window. As readers will remember, it mostly derives from dedicated parcels located further inland from Latour's famous "Enclos," next to Château Haut-Batailley.
Drink 2025 - 2045
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (April 2023)
Juicy and spicy with fresh tobacco, redcurrants and crushed stone character. Medium to full body. Medium velvety tannins and a delicious finish. Will age beautifully as well.
Better after 2026
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com (May 2023)
64 PIT, 6.7% press wine. 45.4% production. Harvest 11 September to 4 October. Technical director Hélène Genin. 1% Petit Verdot completes the blend.
It smells lovely, really aromatic and shining out of the glass, forward and expressive with clarity and precision on the nose full of red fruit and floral scents. Sleek and crisp, this has energy and life force. I love the shape and straightforwardness, but the texture is so captivating - slightly firm but dense and chalky tannins give the bounce and cushioning on the palate while the fruit is lean and well-defined. It so well worked and feels careful, controlled, refined and polished. Sophisticated and just so seamless.
Extremely young right now, coiled and tense still, direct from start to finish, it needs to slow down, soften, and relax. Lovely pure and perfumed red fruits, raspberry and blueberries, alongside a slightly sharp, bitter grapefruit edge to the tannins, as well as graphite and slate, linger on the tongue and give the mighty grip that doesn’t let go. Stylish and enjoyable.
Drink 2023 - 2038
Georgina Hindle, Decanter.com (January 2023)
Showing consistently, the 2017 Les Forts De Latour has a classic cedar pencil, tobacco, and mineral-driven core that certainly has some textbook Château Latour style. It is medium to full-bodied, nicely concentrated, elegant, and balanced and has fine tannins and outstanding length. It has closed down slightly since I tasted it on release and needs just 2-4 years of bottle age to hit its prime time. It will evolve for 20+ years.
Drink 2025 - 2047
Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (May 2023)
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
6.7% press wine. Hélène Genin techincal director, harvest September 11 to October 4. Hold +2 years or carafe for 2 hours.
With a floral curl on the first nose, this is an attractive and sappy Forts de Latour with a fine, elegant, almost chalky aspect to the tannins. Thoroughly charming raspberry and blackberry fruit, fresh earth, cocoa powder and slate, with a mouthwatering finish. There is an elegant feel to this, more evolved than in bigger vintages at the six-year stage, although still with clear architecture to the tannins. As you sit with it, you start to realise how carefully it is gripping through the palate and how fine a wine it is. As with many in Pauillac, Latour found the September rains of 2017 challenging, and two of the plots normally used for the main estate wine are in Forts this year.
Drink 2023 - 2038
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com (February 2023)
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