2017 Château Lafon-Rochet

Tasted blind.  Deep ruby colour. Very fresh and savoury on the nose. Graphite and cedar. The palate has good refinement. Silky red fruit, with the tannins yielding enough to make this approachable. Very fresh-fruited, this is lively – even zesty – and compact. Notes of redcurrant and fresh plum together with dried leaves on the finish. Not profound but good for the medium term. (TP)

The 2017 Lafon-Rochet has really come together nicely since I tasted it in barrel. Deep, rich and yet also vibrant, the 2017 has so much to offer. In 2017, Lafon-Rochet is a wine of precision and class. What it lacks in overt body, it has in persistence and that most elusive quality in wine - personality. I don't expect the 2017 to be especially long-lived, but it will offer fine drinking over the next decade or so.

Bottled at the end of April, Basile Tesseron told me that the 2017 Lafon-Rochet underwent a very light pressing with slow pumping over and no pigeage or délestage since the fruit was fragile. Around 35% of the production was lost due to frost, mainly on the western flank of the vineyard. It offers more red fruit on the nose compared to some of its Saint-Estèphe neighbors, raspberry and crushed strawberry intermixed with light Cuban cigar aromas. The palate is medium-bodied with light, off-dry tannins, a little more black fruit than on the nose. It has a fleshy, rather conservative, light finish with tobacco notes lingering on the aftertaste.