2020 chateau lafite rothschild premier cru classe, pauillac
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Why We're Buying
It's almost impossible to overstate the prestige and renown of Château Lafite Rothschild. The wine estate has first-growth status, endless critical acclaim, and vintages that age more than 50 years. These are just a few of the reasons why someone paid $698,076 for three bottles of its flagship wine in 2010.
Critics Scores
James Suckling
Rather ethereal and so refined with finesse, focus and brightness that provides incredible energy and pedigree. It’s full-bodied with ultra fine tannins that go on and on. Superb presence with tannins that melt into the wine. This is 12.8. I love the wine. Lots of dark fruit and fresh tobacco. Lead pencil, too. 92 cabernet sauvignon, 7 merlot and 1 petit verdot.
Jeb Dunnuck
The 2020 Château Lafite-Rothschild checks in as 92 Cabernet Sauvignon, 7 Merlot, and 1 Petit Verdot brought up in roughly 90 or more of new French oak. It's a deep, inky-hued Lafite boasting incredible notes of crème de cassis, lead pencil shavings, graphite, crushed stone, and gravelly earth-like minerality. Full-bodied and beautifully balanced, with terrific purity of fruit, it has ripe tannins, a layered, seamless mouthfeel, and a great, great finish. It should surpass the 2015 and 2017 and be in the same realm as the 2018 and 2019. Despite its richness and depth, it hit just 12.8 alcohol, with an IPT of 72 and a pH of 3.5. It’s going to be just about immortal.
Vinous
The 2020 Lafite-Rothschild is much more intense and complex compared to the Carruades this year. This First Growth bursts from the glass with beautifully defined blackberry and wild strawberry scents laced with sprigs of wild mint and juniper berries. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins that frame the pixelated black fruit. This is quintessential Lafite in that it is not a powerful or immensely structured wine, but rather a First Growth with unerring balance and harmony, one that is unashamedly classic in style. There is just the right amount of dryness on the finish to urge you back for another sip. So Lafite it has its name tattooed onto its DNA. It will begin to soar after 10 years in the cellar.
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Displaying a deep purple-black color, the 2020 Lafite Rothschild takes a little swirling and coaxing to unlock scents of freshly crushed blackcurrants, boysenberries and spiced plums, followed by emerging nuances of red roses, raspberry preserves, underbrush and unsmoked cigars, with a waft of cedar chest. The medium-bodied palate is an exercise in elegance and finesse, featuring tightly wound layers of red and black berries and loads of mineral sparks, framed by finely grained tannins and well-poised tension, finishing with fantastic length and the most stunning perfume. Magnificent achievement.
Decanter
This is pretty much as close to entirely Cabernet Sauvignon as Bordeaux gets (92) and yet it has an incredibly fine, gentle richness to the tannins. They build up pretty quickly though, so that by the end of the palate you start to feel the closing in and tightening, deftly underscoring how well this will age. The kaleidoscope of flavours and aromatics that Lafite does so well is fully on display, nothing trying too hard, a velvet texture to the tannins where the cassis fruit, earth, crushed stone and graphite is held in from beginning to end. Impressive that even in dry vintages like 2020 with the real concerns over global warming, the top Bordeaux estates can still produce wines of this quality.