Really starting to show that class and breeding now: as we move further back in time, the Latour character comes to the fore with grilled, peppery meat, gravel, a touch of toasted nuts and that opulent blackcurrant style. It’s hard to describe a wine that combines the intensity of a massively reduced, cooked-down meat broth, the featherlight touch of a perfect blackcurrant sorbet and a finish that ebbs and flows through strawberry and cigar smoke for over 40 seconds – well, I suppose that does it.

A hot, dry August produced very concentrated grapes in 1996. However, it turned a bit rainy in mid-September through early October, making the vintage less consistent on the Right Bank and in Graves. But as the weather turned glorious from early October on, it was an amazing year for later-harvested Cabernet in the Médoc. There was new ownership at Latour by this time, and a new vat room was completed just prior to the harvest this year. The 1996 Latour is medium to deep garnet in color with a profound earthy, meaty, gamey nose with hints of blueberry preserves, crème de cassis and pencil shavings. The palate is full-bodied, concentrated and packed with muscular fruit, with a firm, ripe, grainy backbone and epically long finish. Showing much more youthfully than the 2000 tasted on the same day and still possessing bags of youthful fruit in the mid-palate, this beauty is going to go on and on! LPB

A spectacular Latour, the 1996 may be the modern day clone of the 1966, only riper. This vintage, which is so variable in Pomerol, St.-Emilion, and Graves, was fabulous for the late-harvested Cabernet Sauvignon of the northern Medoc because of splendid weather in late September and early October. An opaque purple color is followed by phenomenally sweet, pure aromas of cassis infused with subtle minerals. This massive offering possesses unreal levels of extract, full body, intensely ripe, but abundant tannin, and a finish that lasts for nearly a minute. Classic and dense, it displays the potential for 50-75 years of longevity. Although still an infant, it would be educational to taste a bottle. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2050.

Robert Parker (Wine Advocate #129, Jun 2000)

Quality 981 | Brand 998 | Economics 959 | buzz brand
Quality: Predicted life of 30 years, one of the longest drinking windows in its peer group for the 1996 vintage, which averages 14 years Brand: Strong restaurant presence, featuring on 52 of the world's top wine lists, including Napa Wine Bar & Kitchen Economics: #2 most active wine at auction, its top 5 vintages having seen 4,896 75cl equivalent bottles traded in the past year Production: Lower production than its peer group average of 151,058 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

The best deal on a Latour with age kicks off with cedar, mint, cigar box, spice, currants and graphite. The full-bodied palate is balanced, spicy, vibrant, and multi-layered, with waves of sweet, pure, tobacco/laden currants and spice. The almost seamless finish carries. Decanted for 60 minutes, this is about to go up in score. Drink from 2024-2055. 98pts Jan 2024
A few more years of age and this could hit 100 Pts. It is a thrill-a-sip wine. The nose is packed with leafy mint, smoke, cherries, licorice, flowers, cocoa, tobacco, and truffles. The wine is intense. full-bodied, opulent, flamboyant and sensuous. This is Cheval Blanc at its sexiest best. The layers and leaves of fruit on the mid-palate and in the seamless finish should stop any winelover in their tracks. Drink from 2024-2060. Jan 2024
Offering a sublime tasting experience., the wine is packed with all the spicy cedar, tobacco leaf, cigar box, ash, currants, blackberries, and smoke you could ask for. Full-bodied, deep, long, earthy, rich, and long, the wine unfurls on your palate and stays there. This is still the best buy for a Latour that is close to maturity on the market today. Drink from 2023-2055. July 2023
This keeps getting better and better. With a few more years, I would think it is going to get an upgraded score. And why not? The fruit displays a beautiful sense of purity, harmony, refinement, power, and elegance. The wine is incredibly concentrated, yet balanced, sweet, elegant and complex. Mouthcoating and seamless, there is still more to come with perhaps 4-5 years or more in the cellar. 98pts Sept 2021

Inky black even at 25 years old. A hugely impressive wine, with plenty of chewy tannins still in play, ripples of cassis, bilberry and blackberry fruits, set against olive paste, charcoal and eucalyptus. Things have softened around the edges no question, this is still full of life with decades ahead of it, but this is a great moment to start enjoying its promise. Textbook Latour in many ways, for its austerity and power, and its serious character that is underlaid by concentrated pleasure showcasing 'the gift of sub-gravel clays'. 56% of overall production in the first wine. 1% Petit Verdot completes the blend. Last released in 2014 as an ex-château wine.
Tasted by Jane Anson (at Bordeaux, 04 Jan 2021)
Part of Anson: The brilliance of 1996 Pauillac wines

Saturated ruby-red. Dark berries, violet, licorice and a note of torrefaction. Explosive, pure flavors are almost too big for the mouth. Finishes with big, sweet tannins and expanding, exhilarating flavors of pruneaux and crystallized dark berries. Perfectly integrated oak. A great Latour. May 1999

Tasted blind as a vintage comparison at the Valandraud vertical, the 1996 Latour is a wine that continues to perplex. I just think that given the vintage, the team would have made a far superior wine nowadays. That said, it is still a very fine Pauillac. Here, it conveyed a sense of "airiness" on the bouquet, more backward and surly than other bottles tasted with attractive damp earth and leather aromas. It feels strict and uncompromising when compared to others. The palate is medium-bodied with light and supple tannin, tart red berry fruit, black pepper and plenty of tobacco indicating its Pauillac origins. This is a well balanced, correct and elegant Latour, not the powerhouse of the 2000 or 2005, yet continuing to give drinking pleasure unabated after two decades. Tasted December 2016.
- The Wine Advocate #229, Feb 2017

Dark, brick-rimmed red, not the saturation of 1996 Lafite; crisp, closed, finely gravel-backed Cabernet Sauvigon to smell, persistent and aromatic; very elegantly balanced concentrated middleweight with a fine textured, dry tannin; crisp, ripe, refined and beautifully acute, still dry in texture but with a lovely, finely gravel infused Cabernet flavour; very long and very subtle across the palate, all elegance and understatement, but with no lack of power there either, richer and firmer, and almost bigger in taste than the Margaux, but every bit as long and complex; even more gravelly. More scent and scope here than in the 1996 Lafite, but every bit as long; wonderful definition, energy, character, and then great length too. A most splendid Latour, without needing to be super-concentrated or super-tannic or super-extracted. Here is purity, definition, scent, length, inner energy and individuality, without anything sticking out or getting in the way! So harmonious as to be a great pleasure now, but best leave till its 18th birthday at least. Drink 2014-40