The 1995 is now at peak maturity with sweet black fruits layered with deliciously savoury notes of truffle, tobacco, cedar and earth.
Reviews:
- Wine Advocate: Latour’s second wine, Forts de Latour, is now one of the two or three finest second wines of Bordeaux (Bahans-Haut-Brion and the Clos du Marquis of Leoville Las-Cases are two other personal favorites). The terrific, dark rubypurple-colored 1995 possesses a sweet, jammy black fruit-scented nose intertwined with smoky minerals, earth, and spicy oak. The wine is surprisingly thick and rich in the mouth, with its glycerin and concentration of fruit largely concealing the moderate tannin. This excellent, sweet wine is less powerful, but more accessible than the 1996.
- Wine Spectator: Intense aromas of crushed blackberries and cassis. Full-bodied, with ripe fruit and velvety tannins. Long.
Producer Information
Château Latour is one of Bordeaux’s – and the world’s – most famous wine producers. It is situated in the southeast corner of the Pauillac commune on the border of Saint-Julien, in the Médoc region. Rated as a First Growth in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification, it has become one of the most sought-after and expensive wine producers on the planet, and produces powerfully structured Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant wines capable of lasting many decades. The site has been occupied since 1331, with a fort and garrison to guard the estuary. Several smallholdings began to grow vines, and wine from the site gained recognition from Montaigne as early as the 16th Century. The original tower no longer exists; the famous tower featured on the label was designed as a pigeon roost and built around 1620. Latour’s development as a single property came with the beginning of a long unbroken period of connected family ownership, based around the de Ségur name, also associated with Mouton and Calon-Ségur. This began in 1670 and lasted 290 years although, after the French Revolution, Latour was divided up and not fully reunited until 1841. The château has been owned by French billionaire François Pinault since 1993 and falls under the umbrella of his holding company, Groupe Artemis. Other notable Artemis possessions include the likes of Burgundy’s Le Clos de Tart (in Morey-Saint-Denis) and Domaine d’Eugénie (in Vosne-Romanée), Château-Grillet in Condrieu, and Napa Valley’s Araujo Estate.Typically for the region, Cabernet Sauvignon dominates in the vineyard, accounting for around 80 percent of plantings. Merlot makes up most of the remainder, and there are also small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
