Château Latour 2014

William Kelley 97+/100

The 2014 Latour is one of the very finest wines of a vintage that favored the northern Médoc. Mingling aromas of wild berries and cassis with hints of cigar wrapper, loamy soil, black truffles and classy new oak, it’s full-bodied, rich and concentrated, its broad attack segueing into a deep, tightly wound mid-palate that’s framed by powdery, chalky tannins and bright acids, concluding with a long, mouthwatering finish. This classically balanced, youthfully structured young wine looks set to enjoy prodigious longevity. It’s reminiscent of a modern-day version of a cooler vintage such as 1996, though of course these days maturity is more complete and selection even more rigorous than was the case two decades ago.

Antonio Galloni 96/100

The 2014 Latour is a vintage that I have enjoyed a few times. Now at ten years old, it has a very intense and, for Latour, quite an opulent bouquet that is stylistically more akin to Mouton than Lafite-Rothschild: cigar smoke, black truffles and mint emerge with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with saturated tannins. This is a multi-layered Pauillac dispensing with some of the strictness it showed in its infancy. Very focused, with traces of tobacco and graphite towards the finish, this is a seriously fine Latour that should age gracefully in bottle. Tasted blind at the Southwold 10-Year-On tasting.