2024 Smith Haut Lafitte Rouge

Auslieferung bis zum Herbst 2027!
Delivery until Fall 2027!

Toasted cedar and sandalwood oak on the nose, the team as Smith Haut-Lafitte has done a lovely job of adding a gourmet lick of grilled blueberry and raspberry fruits to the opening moments of the wine, alongside richer damson and black cherry in the mid-palate. Great energy, lift and juice, vivid fruits, graphite, ink, chalk tannins, slimmer through the mid palate than in the bigger vintages, but everything in its place. 21hl/h yield, 60% new oak. Fabien Teitgen technical director.
94/100 Jane Anson

(Pessac-Léognan; 67% Cabernet Sauvignon; 27% Merlot; 5% Cabernet Franc; 1% Petit Verdot; 60% new oak; a final yield of 21 hl/ha; tasted first with Fabien Teitgen at the property and then at the UGC press tasting at the Cité du Vin). Lovely aromatics. Demonstratively Cabernet. Cassis, cedar, that stalky leafiness of all Sauvignon varietals at their best, a little bulby florality too – joined by copious bunches of freshly picked flowers at the UGC press tasting. Black cherry. Blackcurrant. A little black berry, all al dente. This feels very ripe and rather special (the selection of the fruit again crucial). One senses from the aromatics already the succulence to be found in the mouth and the svelte tannins – more 2020 than 2024! There’s a little spice from the oak, but more delicate at this stage than usual. Gracious but quite ample on the attack, if of course rather less so than 2022 or 2023. The acidity and the tannins work together a little like a St Emilion from the calcaire plateau St Emilion in layering this (with the Merlot of course planted here on argilo-calcaire soils), with the tannins like glass beads interspersed between the layers. Fresh and mentholated on the finish, again, like Le Petit Smith, but with more of a fantail still. Impressive. I love the crumbly tannins on the juicy finish.
93-95/100 Colin Hay; The Drinks Business