Château Lafite Rothschild 2024 en Primeur

A more Burgundian vintage for Lafite, with cedar, graphite, paprika, white pepper and fresh red fruit. Nuanced and refined, with a medium body and understated fruit. Intensity and concentration. It shows the Lafite hallmark of elegance, with more fluidity and crunch this year. Very long and delicate. 96% cabernet sauvignon, 3% merlot and 1% petit verdot.

Dry spices and deep blue fruit with some oak and a Pauillac graphite edge. Inviting and quite concentrated. Chalky minerals and bright violet fruit flavours. Although this will not be the longest lived Lafite ever, it is a magnificent wine and floods the mouth with multi-layered fruit complexity and depth, while retaining elegance and freshness. Plenty of bright tannins on the lengthy finish. This tastes like an enormous amount of work has gone into it, and it has. If anyone was going to succeed in 2024, it was Eric Kohler and his team, and they really have.

According to Technical Director Eric Kohler, the 2024 Lafite-Rothschild was picked from September 23 to October 7 and underwent a short vinification—less than three weeks—plus a gentle extraction. The blend includes 16% vin de presse. It has an understated and typical Lafite nose with crushed stone infusing the black fruit, black olive tapenade and marine scents. It comes across as statesmanlike, which is just how you want your First Growth, even in a tricky vintage like this. The palate is medium-bodied with fresh saline notes on the entry. Tensile from the start, this has very impressive focus and is a tad more peppery than previous vintages. This is an assured Lafite-Rothschild with a very seaweed/Japanese wakame-tinged finish. Very promising and one of the very few "cerebral" Left Bank wines in 2024. (Neal Martin)

Deep dark ruby, deep core, violet reflections. Fine herbal savouriness, red berryish touch, a hint of cassis, but also red cherries. A touch of oak. On the palate taut, red berryish and fresh, silky tannins, lively acidity, nuances of currant, mineral, delicate and light-footed, a refined food wine with good ageing potential. (Peter Moser)

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. (William Kelley)