Three Magnificent Classics
2019 Ch Latour, Pauillac, 2020 Forts de Latour, Pauillac + 2023 Ch d’Yquem, Sauternes
September 18, 2026
Little needs to be said. Latour is not sold as a future, but is released when the wine has had some years to develop.
Jeff Leve Deep, dark, garnet in color, the wine is equally dark in its fruit, cigar wrapper, smoke, espresso, leaf, cedar, and spice profile. With elegance, power, firmness, and silkiness, the wine on the palate immediately cuts a wide swath across your palate. All that regal, ripe, sweet, fruit and crushed gravel stick with you almost seamlessly for more than 50 seconds until you reach the endnote with its salty, mineral-driven kick in the endnote. This is a fabulous Latour that will age for decades. The wine was made from a blend of 92.5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 7.5% Merlot, 14.1% ABV. The Grand Vin was produced from only 36% of the harvest. Drink from 2030-2070.
Decanter Dark blackcurrants with smokey tobacco, liquorice and slate. Cool straight away, fresh but so perfectly mouth filling, not sweet like 2020, this is more cooling and fresh, blue fruit, black cherry, fleshy like fruit skin texture. Dark, I love the 2019s because they're more controlled and serious but so nuanced. To me this is how a great Pauillac can taste, serious, deep, classic Cabernet markers, lots of minerality in the flint and stoney aspects, strong tannins and a powerful, muscular structure with minty sides. An amazing Pauillac, this is really my style. Still so full of concentration and life, this will last forever. (GH) Decanter Tasted 2/2026
Single Bottle in Wood Case $750 per bottle
Three-bottle Wood Case $715 per bottle
2020 Forts de Latour
Latour’s second wine is extraordinary in this vintage.
It is a more forward wine that echoes the style and quality of the grand vin
Antonio Galloni (Vinous): "The 2020 Les Forts de Latour is superb. Hints of gravel, dried herbs, game and licorice weave through a core of dark red/purplish fruit. Spice, cedar and sweet pipe tobacco follow. The purity of the flavors is just striking. Initially a touch reticent, the 2020 fleshes out beautifully with a bit of air. I would give this at least another year or two in bottle. A magnificent Forts de Latour. Drink: 2028-2045.
Currants, citrus, flowers, herbs, and tobacco fill the perfume. The palate is packed with supple-textured, creamy, chocolate-edged blackberries, black currants, crushed stones, and plums. This is already a treat in your glass, but it has the ability to age and evolve, perhaps, up to 20 more years. Elegant in style, with good energy and refinement, this is a perfect example of a baby Latour. Drink from 2027-2045.
Lisa Perrotti-Brown "A blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26.5% Merlot, and 3.5% Petit Verdot, the 2020 Les Forts de Latour is deep garnet-purple colored. The nose is very closed to begin, slowly offering glimpses at crushed blackberries, mulberries, and cassis notes, followed by hints of aniseed, black truffles, and underbrush. The medium-bodied palate is very tightly wound with loads of vibrant black fruit and earthy layers and a firm, grainy backbone, finishing long with a compelling lift. Alcohol 13.1%. Drink: 2026-2055
$250 per bottle
$225 In three-bottle wood case
2023 Ch d’Yquem
Perfection? Some critics seem to think so
Neal Martin – Vinous The nose is so seductive that it should come with a warning sticker. Pure and mellow, it offers beguiling scents of wild honey, quince jelly, almond shavings and that signature hint of saffron destined to accentuate with age. It displays wonderful definition, though it does not have the “aromatic drama” of the previous vintage. The palate has exquisite balance and poise that belies the depth of this Yquem, though it is less exuberant, less ostentatious than the 2022. It is really the umami sensation that defines the 2023, how it caresses, almost soothes the grateful taste buds, vanilla and flecks of white chocolate lingering on the aftertaste. This will probably drink a little sooner than the 2022. If the 2023 does have a fault, it’s that it is so flattering in its flush of youth that it will be difficult to resist. Sublime.
Wine Advocate Among the 10 most concentrated vintages in the château’s history—the 2023 d'Yquem ranks among the finest wines bottled here under Lorenzo Pasquini’s direction. It unfurls from the glass with a complex, vibrant and remarkably pure bouquet of pineapple, guava, mango, confit citrus, beeswax and spices. Full-bodied, dense and concentrated, it combines formidable depth with perfectly judged control, built around a fleshy core of fruit, framed by lively acidity and a crystalline texture and culminating in an endless, refined and ethereal finish. Yquem’s natural power is here masterfully harnessed by the vintage’s freshness and tension, revealing an aesthetic of precision and vibrancy encountered only in the estate’s greatest years—made all the more remarkable by the fact that the château now achieves even higher levels of concentration than a decade ago, without any perceptible increase in sweetness on the palate.
Full Bottle $425, In six-bottle wood case $395
-Len Rothenburg
Arrival in about three weeks
FREE DELIVERY!
in Greater Boston on orders more than $250
Nominal cost on smaller orders
Fedex to other parts of Mass.
