A superb wine, aging well, the 1990 Latour still seems deceptively youthful, with plenty of ripe mulberry and blackcurrant fruit aromas and a graceful evolution, with truffle, earth, and smoke notes. The texture is supple and warm, but it avoids the softness of some of the clarets from 1990. The tannins are still reasonably firm. Although the wine should continue to improve in the cellar for at least another 20 years, it is already at a nearly perfect point between youth and maturity. Drunk with friends in Atlanta.

Drinking Window 2022 - 2060

Charles Curtis MW, Decanter (March 2022)

Elegant, sophisticated, long, and exciting, this is a fabulous Pauillac that delivers the goods as soon as the wine hits your glass. Majestic and regal, long and refined, the seamless, long, lingering finish fills every nook and cranny of your palate. This stately wine is superb and has entered its drinking window.

Drink from 2025-2055

Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider (July 2025)

A classic, powerful, regal Latour, the 1990 is solidly in its drink window and has a still-ruby hue as well as a gorgeous perfume of darker currants, tobacco leaf, new saddle leather, and graphite. It opens up beautifully with air and has the perfect mix of great fruit and purity with mature and complex, cedary nuances. Full-bodied on the palate, perfectly balanced, and with sweet yet still present tannins, it can safely be enjoyed any time over the coming 40-50 years.

Maturity 2022 - 2072

Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com (March 2022)

Tasting the 1990 Latour is like running into a long-lost friend. Still dark, deep and spectacularly flamboyant, the 1990 possesses remarkable textural richness from the very first taste. Time in the glass brings out a whole range of pencil shaving, dark fruit, chocolate, licorice and spice flavors, but more than anything else, the 1990 is a wine of pure and total voluptuousness. While I never think of wine as a competition, the 1990 is quite a bit more complex, layered and intriguing than the 1982 served alongside it at the same charity dinner. Its longevity will ultimately be determined by the quality of the cork and storage conditions, as the wine has several decades of truly exceptional drinking still to offer. In a word: magnificent!

Drinking Window 2019 - 2039

Antonio Galloni, Vinous (November 2019)

The 1990 Latour, served from double magnum direct from the château, is a magnificent wine. It is a showstopping bouquet that explodes from the glass. Oodles of blackberry mixes with cedar and glycerin. This is Latour at its most aromatically decadent. Perhaps due to provenance and format, the aromatics are also the most youthful. The palate is medium-bodied with wonderful poise. The graphite element is more pronounced in this larger format, fanning out gloriously toward the finish to complete one of the finest examples I have encountered of this wine. Tasted at the Académie du Vin dinner in Bordeaux.

Drinking Window 2024 - 2050

Neal Martin, Vinous (December 2019)

This is one of the more perplexing Latours to evaluate. It has plenty of sweetness as well as a gorgeous, rich fruitiness, but it lacks the firmness one finds in more recent great vintages such as 1996, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2008. There is plenty of sweet, ripe currant fruitiness, abundant glycerin, and full body, but I’m still waiting for that extra nuance of complexity to emerge. It’s all there, but the wine still seems to be more monolithic than one would expect in a wine approaching 19 years of age. It is not the sure-fire winner I thought it was in its youth, but then again, I don’t have any reason to doubt that more complexity will emerge. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2035. Release price: ($1500.00/case).

Drink Date: 2016 - 2035

Robert M. Parker, Jr., The Wine Advocate (June 2009)

This is one of my favorite wines ever. Full-bodied, with layers of silky fruit and masses of currant, mineral and berry character. Amazing. It's a wine with perfect structure, perfect strength. It's 1961 Latour in modern clothes. It's hard not to drink it now. '89/'90 Bordeaux non-blind horizontal. Best after 2008.

James Suckling, Wine Spectator (February 2005)