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Goedhuis, May 2023, Score: 96-98
Described by the estate as their “precocious child”, this is a tempting combination of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot. Full of brightness and energy, with a lifting fresh currant and elderberry bouquet. An excellent balance between boldness and breadth, the fruit is rich, and the tannins have a powder like sensation. Very long with no shortage of appellational power and drive. So much more than a second wine, this has classified growth qualities in abundance.
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Antonio Galloni, January 2025, Score: 93
The 2022 Carruades de Lafite is a dense, full-throttle Pauillac. Far from an easygoing second wine, the 2022 Carruades is going to need a number of years to be at its best. It’s an almost shockingly powerful wine endowed with serious balance and tons of class. Touches of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot lend hints of spice to round out the blend. The 2022 is stellar. I may very well be underrating it today.
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Antonio Galloni, April 2023, Score: 92-94
The 2022 Carruades de Lafite is a real showstopper. I don’t remember tasting a Carruades quite like the 2022, a wine that combines the richness of the year with tons of supporting structure. Super-ripe red-fleshed fruit, blood orange, mint, cinnamon and rose petal all race across the palate, supported by bright citrus-driven acids that keep the flavors vibrant. I can’t wait to see how this turns out. Drink 2028-2042.
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Wine Advocate, March 2025, Score: 92
The 2022 Carruades de Lafite has turned out nicely in bottle, unwinding in the glass with a youthfully understated bouquet of raspberries, cherries and cedary pencil shavings, followed by a medium to full-bodied, suave and velvety palate that's supple and lively, built around refined, powdery tannins.
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Wine Advocate, April 2023, Score: 91-93
Aromas of sweet cherries and berries mingled with hints of cedar box, loamy soil, warm spices, violets and orange zest introduce the 2022 Carruades de Lafite, a medium to full-bodied, bright and velvety blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot.
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James Suckling, April 2023, Score: 96-97
Extremely perfumed with sweet tobacco and blackcurrants as well as cedar and dark chocolate. Aromatic. Medium-bodied with an intense center palate of blackcurrant, orange peel and peaches. Nervy. 53% cabernet sauvignon, 40% merlot, 4% cabernet franc and 3% petit verdot.
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Matthew Jukes, April 2023, Score: 18+
This wine is a glorious game of two halves. The nose is open, bright and kindly, and the palate is firm, closed, mineral-soaked and refined. The flavour is long and cool against a background of stunning fruit integrity and gorgeous complexity, and the Merlot shines through the stern Cabernet, illuminating the mid-palate of this wine beautifully. Silky-smooth and then lifted with super-clean acidity, this is a highly sophisticated Carruades, and it will need a decade for the tannins to assimilate, leaving a thrilling red-fruit-focussed wine in their wake.
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Jeb Dunnuck, April 2023, Score: 93-95
The second wine of Lafite checks in as 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. This smoking good second wine has more than a little Lafite character and offers ample red and black fruits, notes of tobacco, graphite, and leafy herbs, medium to full-bodied richness, silky, polished tannins, and a great finish. As with the Grand Vin, it's concentrated, powerful, and flawlessly balanced.
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Jane Anson, April 2023, Score: 93
The vintage is marked by intense spice, with cassis, chocolate, mandarin, greengage, dense tannic architecture, with welome mint leaf and raspberry pip freshness on the finish. Need to sit with this, allow the floral aromatics to uncurl, bitter edge on the finish. A serious, almost sombre Carruades at this point, will reward ageing. 16% press wine, 38% Carruades of overall production. 3.75ph,
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LPB, April 2023, Score: 91-93
The 2022 Carruades de Lafite is a blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple in color, it needs a swirl or two to reveal evocative notes of blackcurrant jelly, black raspberries, and Morello cherries, plus suggestions of iris bulb, tilled soil, and crushed cloves. The medium-bodied palate is typically elegant, minerally, and refreshing, with firm, fine-grained tannins to provide support, and a long, lifted finish.
