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Lafite Rothschild 1999

Pauillac, First Growth

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Units Size Case size GBP Price: Quantities Buy
12 75cl Bottle Case 12 £5,650 per Case Case [Add to shopping basket]
Tasting Notes

Delivers wonderful dark chocolate, with raspberry and currant undertones. Full-bodied, featuring soft, silky tannins and a long finish. Very tight still. Needs time. Very layered and holding back.—'89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Best after 2012. 22,500 cases made.

Score: 94

James Suckling, Wine Spectator Maturity: 2012+ 01 January 2010

Transparent and lively. Fresh, appetising and already swallowable. So direct and frank! This is not one of Lafite's finest, most intense productions but it's well balanced and racy.

Score: 18

Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com Maturity: 2010-2025 18 September 2009

Bright, deep ruby-red. Ripe, deep aromas of currant, flowers, coconut and mint. Firm and tight, with excellent cut and precision; brisk flavors of bitter cherry, berry skin and minerals. A slightly dry-edged midweight that's best today on the long, slow-building finish. Shows an intriguing late note of faded rose.

Score: 92

Stephen Tanzer, International Wine Cellar 01 May 2002

The 1999 Lafite Rothschild sports an engraved "1999" on the bottle along with an eclipse to mark that significant historical event of August, 1999. It is a quintessential offering from Lafite Rothschild. This prodigious wine is both elegant and intensely flavored, and almost diaphanous in its layers that unfold with no heaviness. An opaque ruby/purple color is accompanied by a complex bouquet of lead pencil, graphite, cedar, creme de cassis, toast, and vanilla. It is medium-bodied, with extravagant layers of richness yet little weight, and a finish that is all sweetness, ripeness, and harmony. This extraordinary Lafite increasingly appears to be a modern day clone of the majestic 1953. A mere one-third of the crop made it into the grand vin!

Score: 95

Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com Maturity: 2007-2030 01 April 2002

A great effort for the vintage, the 1999 possesses an open-knit, friendly, with sweet tannin, low acidity, and plump, corpulent, earthy, black fruit notes intertwined with a touch of pain grille and berries. The wine is opulent and pure, with a sensational mid-palate as well as 35+ second finish. This wine will be approachable upon release, yet will last 25 or more years.

Score: 93 - 95

Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com Maturity: 2004-2005 01 April 2001

The 1999 Lafite (74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18.5% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 1.5% Petit Verdot) reveals the characteristics of a hot growing season. It possesses what I call concentrated finesse. The bouquet offers up aromas of lead pencil, black fruits, vanilla, and minerals. Rich yet suave, gloriously precise, and ethereal in its nicely-layered texture that floats across the palate without any heaviness, this deep, medium-bodied, impressively-endowed Lafite-Rothschild should be one of the few Lafites that can be drunk early in life. It possesses the requisite stuffing, power, and extract level to evolve for 20 or more years.

Score: 92 - 94

Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com Maturity: 2003-2020 01 April 2000