Quality 989 | Brand 999 | Economics 959 | buzz brand, investment staple
Quality: Predicted life of 41 years, one of the longest drinking windows in its peer group for the 1996 vintage, which averages 14 years Brand: #2 Most sought after wine globally, with 87,284 searches on Wine-Searcher per month Economics: #3 most active wine at auction, its top 5 vintages having seen 4,733 75cl equivalent bottles traded in the past year Production: Higher production than its peer group average of 151,058 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

First tasted at the Farr horizontal in January 2003. Deeper than 1995. Nose is closed. Tobacco and wood with a touch of liquorice. Fine definition. Very concentrated palate - full-bodied. At an adolescent stage. Earthy/cigar-box notes. Quite austere on finish. Vin de garde. Very fine indeed. Then at the Lafite vertical in November 2005. Opaque purple/black colour. Just an incredible nose: blackberry, roasted herbs, pain grille all with brilliant definition. Absolutely stunning. The palate is very backward with firm, masculine tannins. Perfect acidity. Dense, earthy black fruits, minerals with a touch of black truffle developing. Incredible concentration and a perfect wine that marries power and finesse. Very complex. Brilliant, but a long-term wine. Leave it 10 years or more. Last tasted in September 2006 when it was just a little more herbaceous than I expected.

– eRobertParker.com, Jan 2000

Very dark blackish red, narrow rim, just starting to brick; dense, concentrated, relatively closed, but with a clear, persistent, mineral infused blackcurrant Cabernet; crisp and fine and complex to smell; richly concentrated middleweight wine with a fresh acidity and a particularly refined tannin texture; lovely ripe but restrained cabernet fruit, scented and subtly minerally; very poised, effortlessly long and graceful and with very persistent, mineral infused length; a slightly bigger wine than the Margaux (a slightly thicker artists brush?), but with all its finesse and scope, and just a little more flesh. Great taffeta fine Lafite in the making, with enormous delicacy and pronounced scent. Classic. Almost approachable, because so harmonious and so beautifully textured. A copybook example of fine, rather than stressed, excessive winemaking. Not big, but so much class and complexity and perfume. Drink 2012-50+.

Tasted three times since bottling, the 1996 Lafite-Rothschild is unquestionably this renowned estate's greatest wine. As I indicated last year, only 38% of the crop was deemed grand enough to be put into the final blend, which is atypically high in Cabernet Sauvignon (83% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 7% Merlot, and 3% Petit Verdot). This massive wine may be the biggest, largest-scaled Lafite I have ever tasted. It will require many years to come around, so I suspect all of us past the age of fifty might want to give serious consideration as to whether we should be laying away multiple cases of this wine. It is also the first Lafite-Rothschild to be put into a new engraved bottle (designed to prevent fraudulent imitations). The wine exhibits a thick-looking, ruby/purple color, and a knock-out nose of lead pencil, minerals, flowers, and black currant scents. Extremely powerful and full-bodied, with remarkable complexity for such a young wine, this huge Lafite is oozing with extract and richness, yet has managed to preserve its quintessentially elegant personality. This wine is even richer than it was prior to bottling. It should unquestionably last for 40-50 years. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2050. The wine of the vintage?

Robert Parker (Wine Advocate #122, Apr 1999)

An elegant but muscular Lafite, really summing up the trajectory that this wine takes over decades in a good vintage. It started out in its early years with huge concentration, more in fact than in many vintages, but it is now showcasing the subtlety and infinite range of flavours and aromatics that makes Lafite such a singular wine. Expect layers of earth, cigar box, liquorice, cold ash, blackberry, cassis, pencil lead, mint leaf and crushed rock minerality. The first Lafite to be put in an anti-fraud engraved bottle. 38% of overall production in the first wine, quite low at the time although typical today. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend.
Tasted by Jane Anson (at Bordeaux, 04 Jan 2021)
Part of Anson: The brilliance of 1996 Pauillac wines