Carruades de Lafite 2016

Tasted blind. Quite a burly nose. Big and beefy. Robust. Chunky. Very dry on the end. Sincere rather than charming. Lots packed in here. Wait awhile! Exciting.Drink 2027 – 2047

While few people get excited about second wines, the reality today is that the top estates are making such a strict selection that their second wines are unquestionably equivalent to the grand vins of a few decades ago. Case in point: the 2016 Carruades de Lafite, a brilliant wine that stands up with the top wines in Pauillac. Offering a medium to full-bodied, seamless, incredibly pure style as well as classy black cherry fruits, graphite, licorice, and dried earth, it’s impeccably balanced, has no hard edges, and is already hard to resist. Drink it any time over the coming 20-25 years. 2019 - 2044.

The nose has fresh fruits quite firm the palate starts with concentrated flavours rich black cherry and sloe. Rich and ripe in the middle the tannins wrapped round by rich fruit. Sweet at the back the sweet fruit is underpinned and balanced by freshness but it tends to dry on the finish. 2025-36

The oak is still a little marked on this second wine, but that’s forgivable in a six-month-old sample. Like the Grand Vin, it’s a fine, graceful, elegant claret with notes of blackcurrant leaf and cigar box, filigree tannins and a tangy, palate-cleansing finish. 2022-30

A blend of 49% Merlot, 44% Cabernet Sauvignon, 5% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot, the deep garnet-purple colored 2016 Carruades de Lafite opens with expressive baked plums, Morello cherries and blackcurrant cordial scents with touches of stewed tea, bay leaves and tilled soil plus a waft of tree bark. Medium-bodied with a great mid-palate core of red and black fruits, it has a solid, grainy frame and compelling freshness, finishing long and minerally. 2019 - 2034

The 2016 Carruades de Lafite contains more Merlot than Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a tightly wound bouquet featuring tightly coiled black fruit and hints of brine and sea spray. I appreciate the aromatics, but it needs a little more intensity. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin. This is very well balanced, with gentle grip, and very pure in the mouth, offering blackberry, bilberry and a touch of white pepper toward the quite persistent finish. Very fine. Drink 2021-2036

The 2016 Carruades de Lafite is a blend of 44% Cabernet Sauvignon, 49% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot this year that matured in around 20-25% new oak. Eric Kohler told me that they now practice more selection for the Carruades and in this respect, the great fruit concentration means that he has just tweaked the level of new oak upwards. It has an attractive bouquet with smoke and tobacco infused black fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannin. This is a linear and conservative Carruades, one without the frills, almost economical but that is not necessarily a bad thing. It is fresh and focused, demonstrating more ripeness than previous vintages, and has a little more length. Drink it over the next decade. Drink 2020 - 2035.

There's a putty note on the nose. Neat, restrained, rather tight nose and a tad mean on the end. Just as there's a big gap between Petit Mouton and the grand vin, so there seems to be between Carruades and Lafite. Drying tannins on the end. Seems to be a lack of phenolic ripeness towards the end of the palate experience even though it starts out pretty ripe and round. Drink 2024-2038