Chateau Latour 2009

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 vineyard 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. Still being sold En Primeur at the time, so relatively widely available.

• Drinking Window: 2021 - 2046
• Reviewer Name: Jane Anson
• Review Date: September 2021

You can sense the ripeness of the sunny vintage in the nose, with its joyous red berries, tobacco leaf, oyster shell, vanilla smoke, mint, cigar box and dark chocolate. Sensuous on the palate, with silky tannins and sweet, ripe, pure fruits, the wine is all power, grace, symmetry and elegance. This is a sexy vintage of Latour that you can really feel, as the wine rests and expands on your palate. Yes this is young. So if you are going to open a bottle, give it 2-3 hours of air, or wait another decade. This is one of the memorable tasting experiences that was impossible to spit.

• Reviewer Name: Jeff Leve
• Review Date: September 2019

Deep garnet colored, 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!

• Drinking Window: 2022 - 2080
• Reviewer Name: Lisa Perrotti-Brown
• Review Date: March 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 color as well as 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. 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.

• Reviewer Name: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
• Review Date: December 2011

A breathtaking combination of dried flowers and minerals, with dark fruits such as currants and blackberries. Full-bodied, with fabulous fruit concentration, yet its compacted. Velvety tannins. So much fruit and beauty. It's the quality of the tannins that are magic. It is the famous 1959 all over again. Amazing. Try in 2022.

This is still closed, although a softening of the tannins is apparent. It has a gorgeous nose full of Pauillac power and finesse, with brambled fruits and touches of hedgerow as the Cabernet Sauvignon count heads upwards. The fresh core is clear from start to finish, giving that high-wire feeling that makes great Médocs so thrilling. There's a sense of drama to the cassis fruits, controlled but with impact and a sense of purpose, leading to a chewy finish. This is barely bedded down and has the shoulders and backbone to carry it for years. Don't approach it yet.

• Drinking Window: 2024 - 2046
• Reviewer Name: Jane Anson
• Review Date: February 2019

This seems to come full circle, with a blazing iron note and mouthwatering acidity up front leading to intense, vibrant cassis, blackberry and cherry skin flavors that course along, followed by the same vivacious minerality that started things off. The tobacco, ganache and espresso notes seem almost superfluous right now, but they'll join the fray in due time. The question is, can you wait long enough? Best from 2020 through 2040.

(a 91/9 blend of cabernet sauvignon and merlot; 13.7% alcohol; 87 IPT; roughly 38% of the total crop) Purple ruby. Flamboyant aromas of red cherry, cassis, graphite and cedar soar from the glass. Then very dense, supple and smooth, with a noble texture and great breadth to its red cherry, blackcurrant, spicy plum, ink and cedar flavors. Finishes with exceptionally velvety tannins and a very ripe, almost perfumed quality to the red and black fruit flavors. A large-scaled and clearly 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 either the 2009 Lafite or Margaux, but is much more powerful than both of those wines. Millionaires will have a lot of fun over the years comparing the first growths of 2009 and arguing over which is the best.

• Reviewer Name: Ian d'Agata
• Review Date: May 2010

The 2009 Latour is very classic in style with black fruit, undergrowth, cedar, graphite and smoke, although I find at the moment, the 2009 Mouton-Rothschild has a tad more complexity. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, a fine line of acidity, linear and focused, more controlled than Mouton-Rothschild but determined to exert its own terroir over the imprimatur of the growing season. This is an outstanding Latour with ineffable depth and breeding, but the 2010 Latour might well turn out better. Tasted at BI Wines & Spirits' Ten Year On tasting.

• Drinking Window: 2024 - 2070
• Reviewer Name: Neal Martin
• Review Date: March 2019

Tasted blind. Lustrous deep crimson. Sweet yet refined. Recalls juggling or tightrope-walking with its mixture of ripeness and freshness. Dry finish on wonderfully precise sweet fruit. Still very youthful. Clean. Highest average score ever! 19.24 because of five 20/20s.

• Drinking Window: 2022 - 2050

Deep purple-ruby. Pungent floral and spice notes enliven complex aromas of dark plum, cocoa and minerals. Large-scaled and juicy, with lively acidity giving sharp definition to the uncommonly deep, pure flavors of black fruits, forest floor and dark spices. The impressively ripe, powerful finish features youthfully chewy tannins and outstanding persistence. This big boy will require a lot of patience: forget about it in the cellar for at least 15 years.

• Reviewer Name: Stephen Tanzer
• Review Date: July 2012