Beschreibung:

Château Latour Working for the Bordeaux négociant house of Allied Breweries in the 70s had some distinct advantages, one of which was to be in frequent contact with the château that they part-owned until 1993 : Château Latour. So I tasted – and drank – frequently all the vintages of the 60s and 70s and developed a great affection for them : affection is perhaps not quite the word : the uncompromising wines of Latour command more respect than affection. The historian Franck said of them in 1824 « They have more body than Lafite and Margaux » ; Edmund Penning Rowsell talked of Latour's « splendid depth and richness of flavour » as opposed to Mouton's « concentration » and Margaux's « charm » ; Clive Coates described them as « like Mouton but more regal in their bearing » ; and James Seely tells of « wines of legendary longevity that should be laid down by the unselfish and dynastically-minded ». As a new boy to Bordeaux in 1974, I was not at the forefront of these tastings and dinners but I was allowed to attend them and have fond memories of our hosts, the wonderfully gritty Médocain Jean-Paul-Gardère (estate manager from 1963 to 1987), the quintessentially British Harry Waugh, who was a director, representing the Harvey's share of the property, and finally the very cultured Christian Le Sommer (1989 to 1999). All these people made us feel part of the family, which I suppose we actually were, and I have imprinted on my taste-brain for life all the deep, dark, cassis-scented and beautifully tannic character of all those now old vintages. Of these, we are offerring several today, during a period when Latour was a bit leaner in style than today but I always thought that this uncovered Latour's unique sheer purety and class of great Pauillac. The '75 was always the least developed of that dry vintage, in its early days all structure rather than fruit, which took a long time overlaying the tannins during its ageing. I remember asking the cellar-master M. Malbec whether it hadn't been picked a tad too early since that was the rumour about the vintage at the time : after the crash of 1974 and three successive off-vintages, was the temptation to take no chances with such a promissing vintage ? He replied emphatically to the contrary, asserting very strongly that such tightness of style was a natural feature of the vintage and nothing to do with picking dates. The last times I drank it, at a vertical tasting in New York in 2005 and over a dinner in LA in 2011, it was still quite dry but had a wonderful core of delicate, sweet, rather briary fruit – very satisfying and confirming my opinion that it was the best '75 Bordeaux. I have not seen the '81 for some time but can say that when I left off in the late 90s, it was still looking just as it had been in barrel : medium-weight but beautifully balanced. About the '83 one journalist wrote that it was the beginning of a trend to quicker-ageing wines, to which Gardère gruffly replied that it was rather a question of tighter selection of ripe grapes at harvest. The remainder of the vintages of the 80s were indeed softer and slightly lighter, until the cuverie was enlarged in 1989 when Le Sommer started. So the return to the strong, muscular style happened during the difficult vintages of the early 90s, starting with a captivating showing in '91, again for me the wine of the vintage (Latour's proximity to the river kept the April frost away) and continuing through an unusually fine '92, a surprisingly rich '93 and '94, then really expressing its completeness in the '95 and '96, after the Artemis purchase and the start of Frédéric Engerer's investments. The end of the millenium's vintages were all spectacular, even the softer '97, culminating in the grandeur of the 2000 and continuing into the quite recent more velvety and richer style. Château Latour 1975 Pauillac, 1er cru classé In original wooden case. Original tissues. Corroded and slightly damaged capsules. One depressed cork. Bin-so