This is a beautiful Carraudes with currant, sweet-tobacco and wet-earth aromas and flavors. Medium-bodied with a dense center-palate and tight, polished tannins. Fresh, with tension. Reminds me of the 1995 Lafite. This is so Lafite in character. It shows so much cabernet sauvignon character. It’s 68% cabernet sauvignon, 27% merlot and the rest cabernet franc. Try after 2026.

Ripe nose, so fresh and alive with beautiful cherry perfumed aromas too. This has a lovely, almost sweet, aspect to the fruit on the palate with high acidity making you salivate. High toned blackcurrants and red cherries are supported by soft tannins and gentle licks of liquorice and coffee. A wine you just want to drink now as it's so appealing with freshness and lift but it has the sides of spice that give it structure and make you realise it's still powerful and will age so well. The finish is cool and lifted. Poise and persistence - a tantalising Carruades. Drinking Window: 2027 - 2044
Tasted by: Georgina Hindle (at Bordeaux, 05 Jan 2022)
Part of Best Bordeaux 2019 wines: Second labels

Ripe nose, so fresh and alive with beautiful cherry perfumed aromas too. This has a lovely, almost sweet, aspect to the fruit on the palate with high acidity making you salivate. High toned blackcurrants and red cherries are supported by soft tannins and gentle licks of liquorice and coffee. A wine you just want to drink now as it's so appealing with freshness and lift but it has the sides of spice that give it structure and make you realise it's still powerful and will age so well. The finish is cool and lifted. Poise and persistence - a tantalising Carruades.

The second wine of the estate, the 2019 Carruades De Lafite offers a beautiful, Lafite-like bouquet of crème de cassis, cedar pencil, tobacco, and new leather. Gorgeously complex, medium to full-bodied, with silky tannins, and a great finish, it's a brilliant wine that would certainly do just fine in a blind lineup of Lafite. The blend is 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, and 5% Cabernet Franc.

Elegant and fresh, this baby Lafite offers flowers, sweet, lifted red currants, red plums, tobacco leaf and a touch of spicy cranberry on the nose and palate. Medium-bodied, vibrant, crisp, refined and a bit reserved, the wine finishes a mélange of crisp, fresh, red fruits, spices and savory herbs. Drink from 2026-2040. Tasted March 2022

One of the more concentrated Carruades, with the highest percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon to date, packed with powerful dark plum and blackcurrant fruits, pencil lead and slate. Knitted down, sculpted tannins, there is austerity even rigidity to the structure, but it has laid on weight and depth over ageing. This is a Carruades with a sense of occasion and will need time in bottle. 38hl/h yield, 28% new oak.

The 2019 Carruades de Lafite is a powerhouse that shows little of the radiance it did as a younger wine. That should not be an issue in time. The Cabernet is the highest it has ever been here, at 73%, and that seems to be especially evident today, certainly moreso than it was two years ago. Savory and dense, with tons of power, the 2019 Carruades has quite a bit to offer, for those who can wait.

The 2019 Carruades de Lafite, which has the lowest proportion of Merlot in the blend to date, has a pretty, pure, mineral-driven bouquet of shimmering red fruit, crushed strawberry and cranberry. Touches of pressed iris flower emerge with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with succulent ripe tannins and fine tension, maybe not quite as luxuriant as it was out of barrel, but it has gained more tension and precision on the finish. Graphite lingers on the aftertaste. Excellent.

The 2019 Carruades de Lafite is rich and expansive, bursting with aromas of ripe berries, violets, spice box, cedar and cassis. Medium to full-bodied, ample and fleshy, it's broad and generous, with a more exotic, extravagant profile than the grand vin but also levels of concentration and character that exceed what was the case a decade ago. In recent years, Lafite has actually ripped up parcels that routinely never made it into the grand vin—and the grand vin now includes more and more Cabernet Sauvignon. Even if Carruades now contains less Merlot than was historically the case (27% in 2019), I suspect it's benefiting from the inclusion of Merlot that would have formerly made it into the assemblage of Lafite itself.

68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc. Barrel sample. More Cabernet and less Merlot than usual, and it shows. Bright and fresh, even tangy on the palate, with very fine tannins, the fruit breezy and gourmand. Touch of mint to the dense, dark fruit. Super length. Lots of charm. (JL)

Tasted blind. Warm, intense nose. Neat and aromatic and pretty. Really nice wine, even if not the most concentrated or longest-lived. (JR)