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Goedhuis, June 2020, Score: 98-99
Striking aromas of mocha and oriental spice with hints of liquorice and autumnal forest fruits. This is all about composure and discretion with layers of distinctive tight dark fruit flavours. The entrance in the palate is very graceful and the fruit unfurls beautifully. This is everything a Lafite should be: elegant and defined, subtle yet powerful. A wine which will reward keeping and give many generations of claret lovers huge pleasure. The ultimate in Pauillac class.
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Neal Martin, January 2023, Score: 98
The 2019 Lafite-Rothschild has a most earthy bouquet with warm gravel and black olive scents percolating through the black fruit. Warm bricks on a hot sunny afternoon. The palate is medium-bodied with gorgeous, saturated yet firm tannins that frame the layers of mineral-laden black fruit. This is a live wire, so tensile and focused towards the finish with a fabulously long aftertaste. Marvelous. Tasted blind at the Southwold annual tasting. Drink 2028-2065.
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Neal Martin, June 2020, Score: 96-98
The 2019 Lafite-Rothschild was picked from 19 September with the Merlots, pausing during a rainy spell and then picked through to 7 October. The blend includes what Eric Kohler calls "outsider" parcels that met the grade, including some of the Merlot on more clayey soils (see introduction) as well as 13.5% vin de presse. Alcohol here is some half a degree lower than many of its peers at around 13.4%. It has a very sensual bouquet, not a common feature in this First Growth, with generous black fruit infused with pencil box, sous-bois and discrete white pepper aromas. The oak is beautifully subsumed by the fruit already. The palate is medium-bodied with succulent, rounded tannins that lend this Lafite its creamy femme fatale texture and disguise its backbone. More powerful than expected, this builds in the mouth towards an atypically corpulent, dense finish that seems to "flow" across the senses. There is not a single hair out of place. I can envisage this firming up during its élevage and deserving more bottle age than seemingly appropriate at this juncture. Whatever its drinking plateau turns out to be, it is certainly a wonderful Lafite-Rothschild that pips the 2018 and revels in the growing season. Drink 2029 - 2070
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Antonio Galloni, June 2020, Score: 96-98
The 2019 Lafite-Rothschild is sensual, alluring and simply breathtaking in its beauty. A vivid, towering Lafite, the 2019 simply has it all. Even with all of its intensity, the 2019 possesses striking minerality and tension that give the wine its sense of drive and precision. it is a stunning wine by any measure. The blend is 94% Cabernet 5% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot, including some Merlot from clay-rich parcels that are new to the Grand Vin.
Technical Director Eric Kohler describes 2019 as an easier vintage than 2018, a year that saw quite a bit of disease pressure and extremes of temperature. Kohler added that while 2019 was hot, it was consistently hot, and therefore the vines adapted to the conditions as opposed to being shocked by sudden changes. Yields were a very classic 36-40 hectoliters per hectare, depending on the property. Cuvaison was about three weeks, with gentle extractions. As always one of the signatures at Lafite is the use of a portion of press lots in the final blends.
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Wine Advocate, June 2020, Score: 97-99
The 2019 Lafite Rothschild is a blend of 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot, harvested from the 19th of September to the 7th of October. Deep garnet-purple in color, it rolls effortlessly out of the glass with compelling notions of baked black cherries, ripe blackberries and crème de cassis followed by hints of mocha, licorice, smoked meats and Sichuan pepper with a waft of eucalyptus. Medium-bodied, the palate is at once ethereally graceful and powerfully intense, featuring layer upon layer of profound smoky, savory flavors and decadently ripe fruit, framed by exquisite, silt-like tannins and just enough freshness, finishing with epic length. In terms of flavor profile, this is a surprisingly (atypically) hedonic, forward expression, with notably lower acidity/higher pH (the pH is 3.9). The alcohol is 13.4%, just a tick higher than the 2018 (13.3%). And yet, the tannins here are unmistakably Lafite, featuring all the tannic grace, finesse and densely pixilated poise fans will expect. What an exciting paradox for the palate—bravo!
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James Suckling, May 2020, Score: 99-100
Complex aromas of blackcurrants and lead pencil. Incredible. Graphite and tar. Stunning. It’s full-bodied, yet shows such harmony and polish. Elegance and complexity with finesse. The tannins are so integrated and endless. It goes on for minutes. 94% cabernet sauvignon, 5% merlot and 1% petit verdot.
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Decanter, June 2020, Score: 98
Performs the trick of being immediately succulent and mouthwatering while simultaneously revving up and building power through the palate. You're getting sapidity and savoury black fruits that are both elegant and full of power. The spicy rosemary and black pepper, with slate-textured minerality, is almost unnoticeable until it closes in on the final stretch, helping to stretch things out, beat by beat, adding energy and lift. One half of the 5% Merlot in this blend is from plots that have never before been used in Lafite's 1st wine, because their drone and satellite research discovered three tiny areas that were similar in character and could be vinified together. They have worked on this for the past three years, successfully so for first time in 2019. It just holds on tight, with a creaminess that you don't always find in Lafite at this early stage. A brilliant wine, one that could be upscored from this when in bottle. Harvest September 19 to October 7. Drink 2029 – 2048
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Jancis Robinson, June 2020, Score: 19
Supreme elegance in the Lafite mould. Fresh and fragrant on the nose with mineral, cedar and dark-fruit notes. Poise and precision on the palate, the attack clean and direct, the tannins long and linear but enrobed in ripe fruit. Dense but with a reined-in discretion. Silky texture and overall great freshness. Just edges the 2018 for freshness and finesse. (JL)
Drink 2030 – 2050
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Wine Cellar Insider, June 2020, Score: 98-100
This is a beautiful example of what Chateau Lafite Rothschild does best. Dark garnet in color, aromatically, you find lead pencil, cedar, forest, tobacco wrapper, mint, and black with red fruit scents. The most elegant of all the First Growths, the wine, classic in nature, is refined, pure, bright, focused, precise, and long. There is an intensity that expands as the wine graces your palate, before moving to the finish that is all about the extraordinary purity in the fruits. The wine blends 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot. The Merlot was harvested September 19-September 25. Cabernet Sauvignon was picked September 22-October 7. The wine reached 13.4% alcohol with pH of 3.9. The Grand Vin was produced from only 40% of the harvest with yields of 38 hectoliters per hectare.
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Wine Advocate, April 2022, Score: 100
One of the greatest wines produced in Bordeaux this year is the 2019 Lafite Rothschild, an impeccably balanced classic of immense charm and grace. Wafting from the glass with arresting aromas of cassis, blackberries and cherries mingled with violets, cigar box and warm spices, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and seamless, its velvety attack segueing into a layered, concentrated mid-palate framed by exquisitely powdery tannins and ripe acids, and concluding with a long, perfumed finish. This rivals the 2010 and 2016 as the greatest Lafite of the decade, and of those three vintages, it's clearly the most sensual and demonstrative out of the gates. The blend contains fully 94% Cabernet Sauvignon and attained a modest 13.4% alcohol. Drink 2029 - 2065. 100 points.
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
