2022 Latour

The 2022 Latour is a little more restrained on the nose, very Pauillac-like, with cedar and tobacco dominating the black fruit, quite Lafite-like in style. The palate is medium-bodied with lithe tannins, very fine acidity, classical in style, with just the right amount of sapidity and dryness on the finish to tempt you back for more. Real persistence on the aftertaste. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.

The 2022 Latour is remarkable, unwinding in the glass with a brooding bouquet of crème de cassis, burning embers, lilac and violets that has already entirely integrated its élevage in new oak. The most powerful of the Médoc first growths, it's full-bodied, dense and layered, with monstrous levels of concentration, inner sweetness and structure, concluding with a long, palate-staining finish. While I try to eschew flights of rhetorical fancy, there's something almost primordial about the 2022 Latour, as if it were the blood of the vine itself.

A blend of 92.45% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7.4% Merlot, and the rest Petit Verdot, the 2022 Château Latour reminds me of the 2009 (with a hint of the 2010), with possibly even more finesse and elegance. This deep purple-hued Latour offers a truly sensational bouquet of ripe red and black fruits, liquid violets, and crushed stone, with a subtle youthful hint of graphite. It’s a rich, thick, incredibly concentrated, and full-bodied 2022 that brings the depth and density of the vintage while staying sensationally pure, focused, and precise, with plenty of tannins as well as good acidity. It’s up there with the finest young wines I’ve ever tasted. It probably won’t hit true prime time until two decades after the vintage, and this is one of the just about immortal wines that will keep for 75-100 years. It’s as Latour as Latour gets, and hats off to the team of technical director Hélène Génin and CEO Frédéric Engerer!