1999 Lafite Rothschild
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Tasting notes
Delivers wonderful dark chocolate, with raspberry and currant undertones. Full-bodied, featuring soft, silky tannins and a long finish. Very tight still. Needs time. Very layered and holding back.¿'89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Best after 2012. 22,500 cases made. James Suckling, Wine Spectator 2010
Critic scores
Average Score
Wine Spectator
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
Tasted at the 1999 horizontal at Bordeaux Index. This Lafite has a very upright, very “correct” bouquet with cedar, smoke, a touch of shoe-polish and just a faint hint of tangerine but remaining unresolved like the sample poured by Charles Chevalier at the property last year. The palate is full-bodied with firm tannins, lots of cedar and tobacco on the mid-palate. Good backbone, real depth here but lovely freshness and vibrancy towards the finish. A little foursquare perhaps, but this has a wonderful poise and sense of tension. This is a Lafite of good breeding for the vintage and I feel it will improve with age. Drink 2012-2030. Tasted June 2009. Neal Martin, eRobertParker.com
Transparent and lively. Fresh, appetising and already swallowable. So direct and frank! This is not one of Lafite's finest, most intense productions but it's well balanced and racy. Jancis Robinson, jancisrobinson.com
The 1999 Lafite Rothschild sports an engraved "1999" on the bottle along with an eclipse to mark that significant historical event of August, 1999. It is a quintessential offering from Lafite Rothschild. This prodigious wine is both elegant and intensely flavored, and almost diaphanous in its layers that unfold with no heaviness. An opaque ruby/purple color is accompanied by a complex bouquet of lead pencil, graphite, cedar, creme de cassis, toast, and vanilla. It is medium-bodied, with extravagant layers of richness yet little weight, and a finish that is all sweetness, ripeness, and harmony. This extraordinary Lafite increasingly appears to be a modern day clone of the majestic 1953. A mere one-third of the crop made it into the grand vin! Anticipated maturity: 2007-2030. Apr 2002, www.robertparker.com
About the producer
Ch. Lafite Rothschild is one of the most famous wine estates in Bordeaux and the world. One of the Left Bank’s five First Growths, the Pauillac property is renowned for producing wines of finesse and elegance that age beautifully.