2022 Carruades de Lafite, Pauillac, Bordeaux

53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. Cask sample.

A relatively complex nose with dark fruit and spice prominent, the palate is energetic and tension-packed, ensuring freshness. It is zesty for the year, with a comfortable tannic structure. It should be intriguing as it opens.

Drink 2029 - 2042

The 2022 Carruades de Lafite, representing 37% of the production, has a clean and quite crisp bouquet, pure with black cherries and touches of blue fruit, wilted violet petals emerging with time. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins and fine depth and lightly spiced with touches of pencil lead infusing the black fruit. Quite persistent on the aftertaste.

Drink 2027 - 2045

Aromas of sweet cherries and berries mingled with hints of cedar box, loamy soil, warm spices, violets and orange zest introduce the 2022 Carruades de Lafite, a medium to full-bodied, bright and velvety blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot.

The 2022 Carruades de Lafite is a real showstopper. I don’t remember tasting a Carruades quite like the 2022, a wine that combines the richness of the year with tons of supporting structure. Super-ripe red-fleshed fruit, blood orange, mint, cinnamon and rose petal all race across the palate, supported by bright citrus-driven acids that keep the flavours vibrant. I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Saskia de Rothschild is one of the most forward-thinking proprietors of her generation. All the Bordeaux vineyards are now certified organic. Perhaps more important is her decision to pull out four hectares of vineyards at Lafite-Rothschild to plant them with other crops to promote biodiversity. As for the 2022s, they capture the best the vintage had to offer.

Drink 2028 - 2042

The second wine of Lafite checks in as 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot. This smoking good second wine has more than a little Lafite character and offers ample red and black fruits, notes of tobacco, graphite, and leafy herbs, medium to full-bodied richness, silky, polished tannins, and a great finish. As with the Grand Vin, it's concentrated, powerful, and flawlessly balanced.

53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot.

Extremely perfumed with sweet tobacco, blackcurrants, cedar, and dark chocolate. Aromatic. Medium-bodied with an intense centre palate of blackcurrant, orange peel and peaches. Nervy.

16% press wine, 38% Carruades of overall production.

The vintage is marked by intense spice, with cassis, chocolate, mandarin, greengage, dense tannic architecture, and welcome mint leaf and raspberry pip freshness on the finish. You need to sit with this and allow the floral aromatics to uncurl, with a bitter edge on the finish. At this point, a serious, almost sombre Carruades will reward ageing.

Drink 2027 - 2040

3.75pH. Harvest 31 August to 24 September. 16% press. 3% Petit Verdot completes the blend.

Plums, blackcurrants, dark chocolate and perfumed aromas on the nose. Smooth and bright, silky, sharp, intense but so likeable, a shot of high acidity really sets the tone; this is zinging with energy, bite and power. It's a look at my wine with a strawberry, red cherry sweetness, and herbal savouriness that hits the mid-palate, creating a mouthwatering juiciness and sense of structure. The power comes in after a few minutes, alongside minerality and wet stone touches to the fine but present tannins. Streamlined, focussed and confident. It is cleverly constructed with lots to like, will age well and has lovely Pauillac touches.

Drink 2027 - 2041