This wine may merit an outstanding score after several more years in the bottle. Although it has closed down since bottling, it is an impressively endowed, rich, sweet cassis smelling and tasting Lafon-Rochet. The wine's impressively saturated deep ruby/purple color is accompanied by vanillin, earth, and spicy scents, medium to full body, excellent to outstanding richness, and moderate tannin in the powerful, well-delineated finish. Anticipated maturity: 2003-2018. The Tesseron family, who have done so much to propel Pontet-Canet into the limelight, continue to upgrade the quality of Lafon-Rochet. The above effort is a tannic, backward wine that will require patience.

Very good deep ruby-red. Smoke and currants on the nose. Black raspberry, minerals and graphite on the palate. Has a velvety texture but comes across as less harmonious than the '95; though even, the tannins are more noticeable today. Doesn't offer quite the sweetness or grip of the '96.