Wine Critic
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Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac FUTURES 2024 ETA: Autumn 2027
First Growth. Quatrieme Grand Cru Classe in 1855.
Expert tasting note: (2024 vintage)
Jane Anson 95 Pts:
“Rich texture, this stands head and shoulders above many in the vintage, with graphite, crayon and cassis bud rather than exuberant black fruits. This is precise, savoury, delineated, floral, gunsmoke, juicy, captures the effortless elegance that Lafite does so so well, and it totally delivers. Harvest 23 September to 7 October, 32hl/h yield, above the Pauillac average, 16% press wine included in the blend. Director Eric Kohler's 33rd year in Pauillac. I am giving a slightly earlier begin drinking date than usual, but I am certain this will age exceptionally well as Lafite always does.”
Wine Advocate 91-94:
“A blend of 96% Cabernet Sauvignon, 3% Merlot and 1% Petit Verdot, the 2024 Lafite Rothschild offers up aromas of minty blackcurrants, violets, incense, loamy soil and cigar box, followed by a medium-bodied, pillowy and open-knit palate built around tangy acids and powdery tannins, concluding with a discreetly herbal finish. Harvest began on September 24 and concluded on October 4, delivering a Lafite in something of a throwback style, nodding to the wines made here in the 1970s.”
Colin Hay Drink Business 94-96+:
”Pauillac; 96% Cabernet Sauvignon; 3% Merlot; 1% Petit Verdot; a final yield of 32 hl/ha and representing just a third of the total production; 12.9% alcohol; the first vintage certified organic; tasted at Duhart-Milon with Saskia de Rothschild). Quite plump and plush for the vintage. Like its stablemate Duhart this is very spherical in its shape in the mouth, with gloriously refined cashmere tannins encircling the fresh, bright, crisp and crunchy dark berries and the black cherries – just à point – that form the dense and compact core around which the wine is structured vertically. Horizontally, the wine is again highly structured by a very well-defined central spine around which the graphite seems to gather with the tannins in this dimension stretching out the fruit over the palate. Very classical, very pure and precise, very focussed and always tender, soft and gently seductive. Almost opulent, but never quite, the austerity of the vintage reining it back and rendering this a little more ethereal and also a little more intellectual in the process.
Antonio Galloni, April 2025 (94-96):
"The 2024 Lafite-Rothschild is a sensual, elegant wine very much in the style of the year. Plush and enveloping, with lovely forward fruit, the 2024 is very Lafite, perhaps a bit reticent, but super-expressive just the same. Black cherry, pomegranate, blood orange and a kiss of espresso all build in the glass, framed by quintessentially finessed Lafite tannins. The 2024 is sublime. I expect it will be one of the to be one of the top wines in the Médoc when all is said and done."
