2009 Les Forts de Latour, Pauillac, Bordeaux

The deep garnet colored 2009 Les Forts de Latour springs forth with minted chocolate, blackberry pie, sweaty leather and cast iron pan notes with hints of bay leaves and unsmoked cigars. Medium to full-bodied and laden with muscular black fruit preserves and savory layers, it has a firm, grainy frame and lovely freshness, finishing with a minty kick.Lisa Perrotti-Brown - 14/03/2019

Black red, great fragrance and precision on the nose, great depth of fruit and superb vineyard expression, ripeness, energy and grip over perfect tannins, very good indeed.

Toasty and rich nose. Very plush and velvety – much more so than usual. Rich and velvety – such an amazing texture yet with Les Fort’s solidity. Very firm backbone. Explosive. But it will need quite a time to come round. Very fine and deep. Hint of oyster shells. Lifted. Wonderful texture. Very tight and tense. Dry finish. jancis_robinson_mw MW - JancisRobinson.com - April 2010

Violet and mineral, with hints of blackberry and blueberry on the nose. Full-bodied, with superreserved and refined tannins, yet dense and very impressive. Long and racy. Lasts for minutes. Second wine of Latour. james_suckling - Wine Spectator - March 2010

Possibly the best second wine ever made at Latour (and I love how the 1982 is drinking at age 30), the 2009 Les Forts de Latour is composed of two-thirds Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Merlot blended with a tiny dollop of Petit Verdot, and finished at 13.5% alcohol. Juicy notes of creme de cassis, licorice, camphor, smoke and crushed rocks are followed by a rich, unctuously textured, thick, juicy, exceptionally pure, long wine. This beauty will be at its finest in several years and should keep for three decades. Proprietor Francois Pinault and his director, Frederic Engerer, have pulled out all the stops to produce one of the most monumental Latour’s ever made. 95 robert_parker - Wine Advocate - Feb 2012 Perhaps the finest example ever made (including the extraordinary 1982) of Les Forts de Latour, the 2009 (61.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32.3% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot) is nearly as potent as the Pauillac at 13.5% alcohol. An opaque purple color is followed by notes of black fruits, crushed rocks, spring flowers, and hints of blackberries and smoke. Prodigiously rich and thick with an amazingly long finish of 50 seconds, this astonishing second wine will undoubtedly put on weight before bottling, and should last for 25-30 years. 93-95 robert_parker - Wine Advocate - April 2010