Wine List

Tasted from my cellar, this wine is fully mature, not terribly concentrated, and slightly herbaceous, exhibiting aromas of sweaty saddle leather, melted asphalt, tobacco, and red as well as black fruits. Notions of caramel and roasted nuts also emerge. A medium-bodied effort with soft tannin, but little persistence and length, it requires consumption over the next decade.

Score: 88 Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book (4), December 2003

Score: 87 Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book (3), November 1998

Score: 88 Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (129), June 2000

This wine was tasted from my personal collection, following the Latour tasting. The 1985 Latour is a soft, open-knit example, without much structure, delineation, and depth. The dark ruby color displays amber at the edge. The bouquet of tobacco, black fruits, herbs, earth, and new oak is pleasant, but neither intense nor persistent. The wine is medium-bodied, with sweet fruit on the attack, but it narrows out to reveal dry tannin and herbaceous notes. Anticipated maturity: now-2012.

Score: 88 Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (129), April 2000

Score: 94 James Suckling, Wine Spectator, August 2000

Almost as great as the 1982. Dense and luscious with amazingly deep plum, blackberry and chocolate aromas and flavors. Full-bodied and full tannins. A wine with a terrific future. Try after 1998.--The Bordeaux 50. (JS) 95points

  James Suckling, Wine Spectator

Score: 90 Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book (4), December 2003

Score: 91/93 Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book (3), November 1998

The dense ruby/purple-colored 1996 Les Forts de Latour is exceedingly tannic, with cassis and mushroom-like notes in the aromatics. This full-bodied wine is impressively constituted and one of the finest Forts de Latours of the last two decades. Anticipated maturity: 2005-2018.

Score: 90 Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (122), April 1999

The 1996 appears to be the finest example of this wine since the 1982, although readers should no pass up the 1995 should it be available. The 1996 is a bigger wine than the 1995, exhibiting an opaque ruby/purple color, much of the same character as its bigger, more forceful sibling, but more accessible fruit, a rich, medium to full-bodied, spicy chartacter, and plenty of black currants and minerals in its personality.

Score: 90/91 Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (115), February 1998

Mature rim. Real lift - and then quite delicate. A good package that is just becoming ready to drink. Far from a blockbuster but great balance and grace - not words I would necessarily expect to write about Les Forts. The most popular of this flight - quite rightly. Drink 2005-15

Score: 17 Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com, September 2006

Score: 88 Robert Parker, Bordeaux Book (4), December 2003

Score: 86/87+ Robert Parker, Wine Advocate (128), April 2000

Consistently Bordeaux's best "second" wine, a star in its own right. This is a very open, blackcurrant fruit wine with elegance and harmony and good weight on the palate with quite a sweet, oaky finish. FV15.5.

Score: 15.5 Farr Vintners, June 1999