Pretty much the easiest 100 points that I will ever give, as has been the case every single time I have tasted this wine. Now at 41 years old, and yet showing no signs of flagging, deeper in colour than the 1983 or 1985 First Growths that we tasted alongside, still rich ruby and full of life, with just a hint of softening brick around the outer edges. Packed with sun-ripened rich plum and baked raspberry fruit, sewn through with fennel, aniseed, smoked caramel, soot, cigar box, liquorice and melted tannins that stretch out in front of you and suggest there are still years in front. Somehow, even at 41 years old, it captures all that you love about a young wine and rolls it together with the complexity of an old wine. Insanely good stuff that lifts you off your feet. The Pearson Group were owners at the time, overseen by Lord Cowdray, with Henri Martin and Jean-Paul Gardère as co-directors.
Tasted June 2023 - Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux

With nearly 30 years from vine to glass, this is a wine that shows the ageing potential of well-kept wines from exceptional vintages. Simply, this was as good as you’d expect an ’82 first growth to be – lashings of sweet tannin, incredibly pure flavours of cedar, blackcurrant, roasted meat and a cooked red fruit touch. So, so young and juicy, it doesn’t seem possible. Will this wine ever die?

One of the three or four very greatest wines of the vintage, the 1982 Latour delivers aromas of dark berry fruit, rich cigar wrapper, loamy soil, walnuts and smoke. Full-bodied, broad and layered, it's deep, seamless and immensely concentrated, its fleshy core framed by sweet, powdery tannins, concluding with a long, expansive finish. A monument to the greatness of Bordeaux, it is one wine that's worthy of all the praise that has been lavished on it over the years. 100pts WK
1982 was a great vintage—relatively warm and prolific, producing wines of richness and depth. The 1982 Latour has a medium garnet-brick color and then pow!—it belts out powerful notes of star anise, dried roses, sandalwood and new leather with a core of kirsch, blackberry tart, dried mulberries and blackcurrant pastilles. Full-bodied, rich and spicy with bags of fruit and tons of savory fireworks, it finishes with epic persistence. 100pts LPB
Always somewhat atypical (which I suspect will be the case with the more modern day 2003), the 1982 Latour has been the most opulent, flamboyant, and precocious of the northern Medocs, especially the St.-Juliens, Pauillacs, and St.-Estephes. It hasn’t changed much over the last 10-15 years, revealing sweet tannins as well as extraordinarily decadent, even extravagant levels of fruit, glycerin, and body. It is an amazing wine, and on several occasions, I have actually picked it as a right bank Pomerol because of the lushness and succulence of the cedary, blackberry, black currant fruit. This vintage has always tasted great, even in its youth, and revealed a precociousness that one does not associate with this Chateau. However, the 1982 is still evolving at a glacial pace. The concentration remains remarkable, and the wine is a full-bodied, exuberant, rich, classic Pauillac in its aromatic and flavor profiles. It’s just juiced up (similar to an athlete on steroids) and is all the better for it. This remarkable effort will last as long as the 1982 Mouton, but it has always been more approachable and decadently fruity. Drink it now, in 20 years, and in 50 years! Don’t miss it if you are a wine lover.

The 1982 Latour is the most consistent of the First Growths in this auspicious vintage. Tasted from both bottle and magnum in the UK in recent months, this note comes from an ex-château magnum tasted at a private dinner in Bordeaux. It exudes class and majesty on the nose with its copious but brilliantly focused black fruit laced with cedar and graphite. To use a phrase I have written before, it is blue-blooded...regal. That comes through on a palate that has a haunting symmetry and a killer finish that is brilliantly defined and audaciously long, graphite lingering on the aftertaste. Quite simply, claret does not come better than this. Tasted at a private dinner in Bordeaux. 100pts Sept 2022
The 1982 Latour has always been a quintessential Bordeaux and a quintessential Latour. This is just as composed and detailed as the finest bottles that I have encountered, bridled with captivating blackberry, graphite and cedar aromas that are brilliantly focused. Perhaps it is not quite as showy as it was a few years ago, yet it is still regal and as blue-blooded as they come. The palate is ineffably graceful and chiselled down to the finest detail. One bottle at the International Business and Wine dinner is perhaps more understated than previous examples, but another in Hong Kong delivers such tension and precision that you can only kowtow before it. The 1982 is a masterful, regal Latour and probably now the finest Left Bank exponent of this vintage. Tasted at the International Business & Wine Latour dinner at Ten Trinity and at the Latour dinner in Hong Kong. July 2018

This could be the wine of the vintage. At 40, that is more than long enough for this stunning wine really stand out from the pack. The incredible volume, depth of flavor, concentration, power, and regal bearing must be tasted to believe and understand. The waves of fruit never stop developing. The more than 60-second, and the seamless finish leaves you speechless. Drink from 2022-2050. Tasted Sept 2022 100pts
If a wine were a candidate for 101 Pts, this bottle is a clear candidate. Holy FK! I was blown away by the depth, clarity, length and complexity here. The wine has everything you could hope for. A riveting nose, lush, opulent, polished, refined texture and a finish that hits and crosses the 60 second mark. tasted Aug 2021 100pts