Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte - Pessac-Léognan 2019 (750ml)
Price: $175.00
#4 James Suckling Top 100 of 2022 #57 Jeb Dunnuck Top 100 of 2022
| Producer | Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte |
| Country | France |
| Region | Bordeaux |
| Subregion | Pessac-Leognan |
| Varietal | Bordeaux Blend |
| Vintage | 2019 |
| Sku | 1006835 |
| Size | 750ml |
James Suckling: 99 Points
Intense blackberry and graphite character coming out of the glass together with dried violets ink and some asphalt. Full-bodied with wonderfully integrated tannins that spread across the palate and then draw you deep into the wine. Lead-pencil and blackcurrant aftertaste. Tightly wound with a cashmere-like texture. A whole and thought-provoking wine. Try after 2028 and beyond.
Jeb Dunnuck: 95-97+ Points
The grand vin 2019 Château Smith Haut Lafitte comes from the heart of the Léognan region and beautiful gravelly soils. Deeply hued it's a slightly fresher more structured wine and has beautiful crème de cassis and almost hints of blue fruits as well as classic Graves gravelly damp earth unsmoked tobacco graphite and spice. Beautifully done with full-bodied richness a great mid-palate and both vibrant acidity and ripe tannins it's going to need a solid 7-8 years of bottle age but will be a classic world-class expression of this terroir.
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Vinous: 96 Points
The 2019 Smith Haut Lafitte is a dense explosive wine. Super-ripe dark cherry plum mocha new leather and licorice all saturate the palate in a wine that balances unctuous texture and structure. The 2019 is an opulent Smith Haut Lafitte that is going to need a few years to shed some baby fat. It is a powerhouse to be sure. Dried herbs leather tobacco incense and graphite lend striking savory nuance throughout.
jdWine Advocate: 96 Points
The 2019 Smith Haut Lafitte has turned out very well indeed unwinding in the glass with a complex bouquet of dark berries cassis forest floor pencil shavings licorice and spices. Full-bodied broad and velvety it's layered and elegantly muscular underpinned by rich structuring tannins and lively acids and it concludes with a long expansive finish. This is another estate where the viticultural and stylistic evolutions of the last decade have delivered a beautifully balanced harmonious 2019. Certified organic with the 2019 vintage this year marks a waypoint?rather than a stopping point?in Smith Haut Lafitte's agronomic journey. The Cathiard family banished herbicides at this address in 1991 radically reducing chemical treatments and suffering the consequences for several years in the form of much diminished yields (today happily materiel and techniques are more sophisticated). In addition to organic methods cover crops have been deployed on the vineyard's central blocks and western band where soils are less well drained. Hedges have been planted to encourage biodiversity and ultraviolet treatments are being trialed as an alternative to copper sulfate. In addition to such initiatives the technical team is adapting to a warmer climate: that means picking a touch earlier certainly but more importantly adapting in the vineyards with somewhat lower canopies and an end to deleafing to retain fresh vibrant flavors. Winemaking too is a little gentler: cool but protracted macerations with periodic punch-downs for reds and whole-cluster pressing with an inerted press for whites. This has brought new structural elegance and energy to the estate's wines. It surely helps that as much as possible is done in-house: since 1995 the Cathiards have their own nursery for their own massale selections in partnership with Bérillon and barrels are made in the château's own on-site cooperage too favoring the forests of Tronçais and Jupilles for reds Loches (which brings tension) for whites. All this is symptomatic of the attention to detail and seriousness that the Cathiards and their technical director Fabien Teitgen have brought to this estate; and the result in 2019 is one of the finest wines they've produced to date.
Wine Spectator: 95 Points
A broad rich and caressing wine with a lovely display of cassis plum puree and blackberry pâte de fruit notes. There's form thanks to a buried alder note along with sweet tobacco and iron accents on the finish. A strong showing. Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2024 through 2036.
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