Pauillac de Latour 2019

The 2019 Pauillac de Latour has a welcome strictness and focus on the nose, a straight-down-the-line Pauillac with graphite and pencil shavings infusing the black fruit. The oak is neatly integrated. The palate is medium-bodied, fresh and taut, with pliant tannins and fine acidity. A graphite infused finish doesn't press down too hard on the accelerator. Not over-ambitious - that's its strength. Difficult to believe this is in fact the third wine! Tasted blind at the Southwold annual tasting. 2025 - 2050.

The 2019 Le Pauillac de Château Latour is another impressive rendition of this bottling from Latour. Offering up notes of sweet berry fruit, plums, spices and pencil shavings, it’s medium to full-bodied, rich and fleshy, with a ripe core of fruit, lively acids and powdery tannins. This year, it includes some declassified lots from Les Forts de Latour. I'm sure it will show even better when it's released in a few years. 2025 - 2045

The 2019 Le Pauillac de Chateau Latour is made from 55.8% Cabernet Sauvignon, 38.8% Merlot, and 5.4% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple in color, it leaps with notions of warm cassis, stewed black cherries, and mulberries, plus wafts of pencil shavings and charcoal. The full-bodied palate is very tight-knit and grainy, with a racy line of freshness and lifted finish.

Generous, even exuberant for a Latour family wine, this is richly textured, open in its fruit structure (it had been decanted for a few hours before tasting). Touches of marzipane, cassis and brambled blackberry fruits, with plenty of the pencil lead that ensures we know that we are firmly in Pauillac. A chalky texture to the tannins, with the high alcohols coming through in the supple texture of fully ripe fruits. This is powerful and enjoyable. 35% new oak. The hot summer meant there were patches of water stress on the sandier soils outside of the main L'Enclos de Latour, leading to more 3rd wine than usual, and it accounts for 25% of production in 2019, from unusually high yields of 44.7hl/ha.