Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte 2019
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Suckling
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Product Details
Your Rating
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Winemaker Notes
A rather "approachable" wine, powerful, broad-based, and concentrated with a smooth texture that caresses the palate. The mid-palate is full-bodied and equally concentrated, paving the way for a lovely long aftertaste. A decidedly delicious and lively wine combining power, concentration, and smoothness! The aftertaste is very long, showcasing great complexity where spices and empyreumatic notes typical of the terroir nicely balance out fruity overtones.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Intense blackberry and graphite character coming out of the glass, together with dried violets, ink and some asphalt. Full-bodied with wonderfully integrated tannins that spread across the palate and then draw you deep into the wine. Lead-pencil and blackcurrant aftertaste. Tightly wound with a cashmere-like texture. A whole and thought-provoking wine.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Reminding me a little of the 2009, the 2019 Château Smith Haut Lafitte has a rich, powerful style in its cassis, blueberry, and black raspberry fruit as well as its chalky minerality, smoked earth, tobacco, and lead pencil shaving-like aromas and flavors. A blend of 59% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot, this rich, unctuously textured beauty has terrific concentration, sweet tannins, and the vintage's hallmark elegance and finesse. One of the most concentrated, powerful wines in the vintage, it needs 4-5 years of bottle age (or a healthy decant) and will evolve for 30+ years if stored properly. Not enough can be said about what proprietors Daniel and Florence Cathiard, as well as winemaker Fabien Teitgen, continue to achieve at this estate. Best After 2026
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Wine Enthusiast
Rich in black fruits with a structure that acts as a support. Acidity and blackberry flavors with hints of black coffee and a core of denseness that is very fine. The wine will age well, drink from 2026. Organic and biodynamic.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Smith Haut Lafitte has turned out very well indeed, unwinding in the glass with a complex bouquet of dark berries, cassis, forest floor, pencil shavings, licorice and spices. Full-bodied, broad and velvety, it's layered and elegantly muscular, underpinned by rich structuring tannins and lively acids, and it concludes with a long, expansive finish. This is another estate where the viticultural and stylistic evolutions of the last decade have delivered a beautifully balanced, harmonious 2019. Best after 2026.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
COMMENTARY: Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte always makes a statement, and the 2019 vintage does that. TASTING NOTES: This outstanding wine is impressive with concentrated aromas and flavors of black fruit and oak. Its sublime finish ties it all together. Enjoy it with grilled lamb shanks. (Tasted: June 29, 2022, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Spectator
A broad, rich and caressing wine, with a lovely display of cassis, plum puree and blackberry pâte de fruit notes. There's form thanks to a buried alder note, along with sweet tobacco and iron accents on the finish. A strong showing. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2024.
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Decanter
Green bell pepper, eucalyptus, dark chocolate and perfumed cherries and blackcurrants on the nose - so much aromatic intensity. Immediate impact on the palate with weighty tannins that are ample and mouthcoating giving the softly sweet raspberry and red cherry flavours structure and grip. A juicy core is offset by hints of wood spice which linger on the finish so this needs more time but there is excellent vibrancy and life here and strong markers of the vintage and terroir.
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Wine
Thanks to its 55 hectares of superb gravelly vineyards, Smith Haut Lafitte is often referred to as the "archetypical Graves." The estate's history goes back to the Crusades, and a Scottish navigator, George Smith, who became the owner of the estate in the 18th century. He was followed by M. Duffour-Dubergier, Mayor of Bordeaux, and then Louis Eschenauer, a famous wine shipper.
In 1990, Daniel and Florence Cathiard also fell under the spell of this beautiful estate. Since then, they have restored the 16th century tower, renovated the 18th century manor house, built two underground cellars, went back to traditional vine growing methods without chemical herbicides and set up their own cooperage. The perfect elegance, excellent balance and fine structure of Smith Haut Lafitte's red and white wines are the ultimate reflection of the current owners' total commitment to quality.