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Goedhuis, May 2023, Score: 98-100
Saskia de Rothschild creatively produced “Happy Families” playing cards for all of her estate wines. Lafite is “The Eccentric Grandmother: with an ageless quiet strength and incredible charm”. Beautifully descriptive, but it does not do this extraordinary wine full justice. It is so regal in both style and quality, verging on perfection. Alluringly perfumed with lavender, violets, and undertones of fresh tobacco leaf and cassis. On the palate it is refinement personified, its evolving flavours preceding the subtle power which quietly builds to show great Pauillac tension. An extremely layered wine, it keeps flowing across the palate. Happily, the flavours linger for an immeasurably long time, as you just don’t want them to stop! Luxurious in every way.
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Neal Martin, April 2023, Score: 96-98
The 2022 Lafite-Rothschild was picked from 31 August to 24 September and apart from the 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, there is 17.5% pressed wine in the blend. The IPT is slightly lower than 2020. There is 13.6% alcohol this year, higher than 2018 and 2019. It has an intense bouquet with blackberry, crushed stone, touches of pencil box and undergrowth, very Lafite-Rothschild in style. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, perfectly judged acidity, linear and focused. Compared to vintages a couple of decades ago, there is mid-palate weight, yet it retains classicism and transparency, while delivering quite a gentle but insistent grip on the finish. Perpetually the most deceptive of First Growth, one should not doubt its long-term potential. Drink 2032-2075
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Antonio Galloni, April 2023, Score: 96-98
The 2022 Lafite Rothschild is shaping up to be one of the wines of the vintage. All of the Lafite signatures are present, but what impresses most about the 2022 it its poise, its stature. Readers will find a regal, statuesque Lafite built for serious aging. There’s tons of fruit and tannin, all masterfully put together. A modern-day classic. Drink 2032-2062.
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Wine Advocate, April 2023, Score: 95-97+
A blend of 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot, the 2022 Lafite Rothschild unwinds in the glass with aromas of dark berries, cassis, sweet soils tones, cigar box and lilac. Medium to full-bodied, it's the most tensile of the first growths this year, with a layered, concentrated but youthfully introverted mid-palate, lively acids and a long, saline finish. It checks in at a rather high pH of 3.85, which belies its incisive profile, from a harvest that extended from August 31 to September 24.
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James Suckling, April 2023, Score: 99-100
A classical Lafite that reminds me of something like the 1986, with its blackcurrant and tobacco character with cedar and hazelnut, but it's so today with its purity and precision. It's really about being Lafite here. Terroir gives great elegance with strength.
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Decanter, April 2023, Score: 98
A wonderful example of restraint and delicacy in a year where it was easy to overdo. Sharp and straight, you feel the acidity as soon as this enters the mouth, alive, pulsing, bright and shining. Aromatically so expressive after a few minutes. Delicate almost, such a fine tapestry of tannins, present and at the fore but like taffeta or finely woven silk. It has power but you don't feel it, not instantly anyway, the focus is on the beautiful texture with edges of cool red and blue fruits, flint, graphite, liquorice and tobacco nuances with high acidity that all help build a layered and well constructed mid palate. The structure then focuses and narrows to a mineral, fresh finish. Has bite and succulence, gently muscular with tons of vibrancy. This is definitely one of the less showy wines that really grows on you. A delicious, defined, poised, refined and finessed Lafite. Calm, collected and incredibly charming already. Earliest harvest in over a century, 31 August to 24 September. 17.5% press wine. 3.8pH. 64IPT. 41% grand vin production.
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Matthew Jukes, April 2023, Score: 20+
Château Lafite Rothschild (1er Cru Pauillac) Just under 100% new oak 94 Cabernet Sauvignon, 5 Merlot, 1 Petit Verdot 13.6% alc Harvest took place between 31 August – 24 September 17% press wine addition The key points of 2022 were the three distinct heatwaves and the respite periods that allowed the vines time to relax and recuperate. 110mm of rain helped in June, cool nights in July further boosted the health of the vines and rain storms in August also ensured that the vines did not run out of steam prior to harvest. The Lafite teams started picking on the 31st of August, and they picked small pockets of vines that were starting to suffer in the heat. This tactic boosted those 6 vines on the rest of the plateau. As far as winemaking was concerned, minimal extraction was needed because ‘the juices were black from day one’. Saskia de Rothschild explained to me that ‘the reason 2022 is so stunning is that the vines lived through 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 in readiness’. These are all fascinating vintages, and Saskia believes that the Lafite vines learned how to deal with heat spikes, among other issues, and they have a remarkable ability to adapt. Strangely, at Lafite, Cabernet had higher alcohol degrees than Merlot, and the result is a genuinely awesome wine with amazing balance and sensational amplitude of flavour. This wine has more exoticism than I have seen before, adding a thread of scintillating stylishness to the whole. Aeons long and impossibly silky, this is a lively Lafite full of cadence and purity. Oak spice adds to the distinctive fruit tones, bringing rigour and definition to the honed fruit. All of the work in the vineyard and the incredibly sensitive winemaking achieved stunning results in 2022. This is a genuinely gorgeous wine, and unlike the tense, introverted Lafites of past years, this is a relaxed, harmonious and infinitely detailed wine. Nothing is forced or rushed, and I sense that the vineyards speak with uncommon clarity in 2022 Lafite.
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Jeb Dunnuck, April 2023, Score: 97-99
The 2022 Château Lafite-Rothschild is based on 94% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Merlot, and 1% Petit Verdot that was harvested between the 31st of August and the 24th of September. It's a richer, more opulent wine compared to the more classic 2020 (although the pH is higher in the 2020) and has a deep, full-bodied, concentrated profile as well as classic Lafite aromatics of spicy red and black fruits, freshly sharpened pencils, graphite, and tobacco. Deep, rich, and concentrated, it nevertheless stays pure and flawlessly balanced, with ample, ripe tannins and a great finish. It's going to have some up-front appeal by Lafite standards but should still require a decade of bottle age. Director Eric Koher compares this to the 2005, but this modern-day clone of the 1959 is one of the most powerful, concentrated Lafites I've tasted.
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Jane Anson, April 2023, Score: 97
Saturated inky colour, with intense ruby reflections. This is a classically constructed Lafite, with clear power to the tannins and intense spice, a little more upfront and concentrated than you find in many En Primeur vintages at this property but it exemplifies balance and confidence. Fully in control, delivering estate signature with finesse and understatement, with pulses of graphite, slate, bitter almond and cocoa bean. Takes its time to uncurl in the glass, leaving you plenty of time to admire its architecture. Give it a good decade at least. 17.5% of press wine, 3.85ph, 41% Lafite of overall production. Harvest August 31 to September 24, earliest since 1893. 100% new oak, Eric Kohler techincal director. Potential upscore in bottle.
