Château Lafite-Rothschild 1999

The 1999 Lafite Rothschild sports an engraved “1999” on the bottle along with an eclipse to mark that significant historical event of August, 1999. It is a quintessential offering from Lafite Rothschild. This prodigious wine is both elegant and intensely flavored, and almost diaphanous in its layers that unfold with no heaviness. An opaque ruby/purple color is accompanied by a complex bouquet of lead pencil, graphite, cedar, creme de cassis, toast, and vanilla. It is medium-bodied, with extravagant layers of richness yet little weight, and a finish that is all sweetness, ripeness, and harmony. This extraordinary Lafite increasingly appears to be a modern day clone of the majestic 1953. A mere one-third of the crop made it into the grand vin! Anticipated maturity: 2007-2030.

Delivers wonderful dark chocolate, with raspberry and currant undertones. Full-bodied, featuring soft, silky tannins and a long finish. Very tight still. Needs time. Very layered and holding back. -- '89/'99 Bordeaux blind retrospective (2009). Best after 2012. 22,500 cases made.

At this stage, there is sweet fruit and spice on the nose and a texture that seems silky, supple, and soft initially but shows a firm tannic grip at the end. It drinks well now and should last for the mid-term. A lovely wine from a less-than-promising year. The weather was humid and cloudy early and very hot from the middle of August, but the rain arrived at the end of the month, pushing up the picking date. 40% of the fruit went into the grand vin, a blend of 74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18.5% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 1.5% Petit Verdot – one of the few vintages to feature four grape varieties.

‘A fine vintage for the end of the millennium, barely disturbed by a few drops of rain during harvest. The previous winter had been mild, as during most of the decade, followed by a beautiful spring and early flowering. In July and until mid August, wet days with sparse sunshine, but fortunately, from 15 August and until the rainy harvest, there was a heatwave. At the time, we were already talking about global warming because the average dates for flowering and harvest in the 1990s were about ten days ahead of those in the 1970s.’ Unusually this often-overlooked vintage (in general for bordeaux) contained all four grape varieties planted at Lafite: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Eric Kohler told us that this is true of only four of the 24 vintages with which he has been involved. Mid crimson/garnet. Such perfume and Lafite aroma! No obvious sweetness but real lift and delicacy. Racy Lafite character on the palate; this dances. Real class with some velvety texture and a bone-dry finish. Very clean and pure. It reverberates on the end – thanks to the Indian summer, we were told. Apparently this was chosen for the 150th celebration tasting because it has really started to open out since 2016. (JR)

Bright, deep ruby-red. Ripe, deep aromas of currant, flowers, coconut and mint. Firm and tight, with excellent cut and precision; brisk flavors of bitter cherry, berry skin and minerals. A slightly dry-edged midweight that's best today on the long, slow-building finish. Shows an intriguing late note of faded rose.

Quite young, but fine to drink today, if you enjoy a wine in the middle of the primary stage that is just starting to become secondary. The medium bodied, elegant wine is on the bright, fresh, crisp, red berry side of the style range. Here you find forest leaf, tobacco, cedar, cassis, cherry and spice notes. Softly textured, with fresh, spicy, red fruits, tobacco and herbs in the finish.

Magnum. Very dark color. Notes of Bakelite, truffle, astonishing depth, a mocha touch, green and spicy Cabernet hints, and plenty of black pepper notes as well. Powerful build with still demanding, slightly grainy astringency; it feels almost illogically concentrated for this vintage. A brilliant, extremely young magnum. This Lafite vintage has often given mixed impressions. This was one of the best so far.

00: Rich, dense purple with lilac and violet highlights. Intense Cabernet bouquet, still restrained but noble in its wide-ranging aromatics, with a fine hint of coffee. Firm palate, dense, intense astringency, a clearly imprinted extract with licorice and blackcurrant, a subtle rock-candy note. For a ’99, this wine shows astonishing concentration, though at the moment it doesn’t quite deliver the finesse a Lafite ought to have. 02: Hardy had more than a bit of fun slotting this young wine into a line-up with old Lafite (1928, 1929, 1949 from magnums): a very fruity bouquet shot through with coffee and baked toast. Malty sweetness, мягкий extract, cocoa beans and cassis on the finish. A very feminine, well-balanced First Growth that will soon give a lot of pleasure. In this fruity phase: 18/20 points. Note from 2003: medium garnet with a distinct yet very fine watery rim. The nose shows sweaty/animal notes, glutamate, chicken-bouillon paste, stewed plums, underpinned by licorice; a gently dominant yet seductive roasted tone, sandalwood, burnt almonds, and a Tempranillo-like sweetness—alongside a creeping lack of cleanliness. On the palate juicy, velvety; again these slightly breaking gamey notes (faisandé pheasant or wild hare?). More extract concentration than palate astringency; extremely persistent, controlling tannin suggesting a very long life; ends again with that Ribera/Rioja-like licorice tone—extremely long and needing at least ten years to reach first maturity. It must also be said that several bottles were opened and some tasters quite rightly found unclean notes in all of them. That means the wine remains questionable even in the proper drinking window. At another arrival sample at the Staatskeller Zürich, all four opened bottles were also somehow slightly corked (???). At a blind tasting in spring 2003 at Château Reignac, two bottles were opened: both terribly unclean. Sell or give away are probably the hottest tips for this wine. There are indeed good 18/20-point bottles from time to time, but I’d rather gamble in a casino—at least the odds are somewhat intact. And again absolutely dreadful bottles (three were opened in Berlin) at the blind tasting of Chile (Chadwick) versus the Bordeaux First Growths. 03: In autumn we served this wine in Austria at four different book premieres in Vienna, Linz, Salzburg and Graz. More than 2/3 of the bottles showed unclean. Since I was the one pouring, I “got to” address the latent problem dozens of times. 04: Then again two great bottles at the Mondavi-versus-the-Bordeaux-First-Growths tasting in Zurich. So over the last two years I’ve had a 50:50 split between bottles at 13/20 and those at 18/20. 07: Deep-dark garnet. Delicate spicy bouquet, lots of cedar, a hint of black berries, plums, noble woods—quite approachable. Long, fine palate, blue- to red-berry notes; tannins fine yet still present, muscular; in the finish a ripe banana note. Tastes wonderfully like very good Bordeaux! 09: At the Gupf in Rehetobel. I whispered to the sommelier that he should decant a ’99 Latour. But somehow he understood either nothing at all—or Lafite. So we ended up drinking this wine first. I would never have ordered it, as there had been too many negative experiences beforehand. Yet the wine was fine and sweet and also soft, with a beautiful first stage of drinking maturity. (18/20). 11: Magnum. Very dark colour. Bakelite notes, truffle, astonishing depth, a mocha touch, green-spicy Cabernet traces, also underpinned by lots of black-pepper notes. Powerful build with still-demanding, slightly grainy astringency; somehow illogically concentrated for this vintage. A brilliant, extremely young magnum. With this Lafite vintage there were repeatedly ambivalent impressions. This was one of the best so far. (18/20). 14: A fabulous bottle at Lucien Schmidlin’s, looking out over the sea. Noble woods, cinnamon, rock candy, caramel, fine peppery spice through the middle, still giving up primary aromas from within. My best bottle so far of this bottle-variable wine. This bottle: 19/20!

A fragrant, fruity, velvety bouquet with black cherries, dark berries, dried fruits, toasted notes, mocha and vanilla. The palate is velvety, fruity, dense, creamy and powerful, with rich, sweet aromatics, fine tannins, an opulent structure, and a very long, fruity finish with lingering flavors. Can improve further. 18/20 2014 - 2030

Logo on the cork: the crown Faulty bottle Advanced colour. Fruity nose, not very aromatic, with toasted notes. The palate is evolved and dull. A wine that is already tired and, in this condition, should have been drunk. This profile is consistent with a faulty bottle.