Вино Шато Лафит 1899 (Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1899)

5* Michael Broadbent
Eight notes. Even in a vintage like this, Lafite sold their wine in bulk (by the tonneau, four barriques yielding approximately 100 dozen bottles) to Bordeaux négociants for bottling and shipping on to other merchants. The first I tasted, in 1971, had been bottled by Louis Mortier: light, refined, beautiful flavor. The same year, ‘Château Lafite Grand Vin’ could have been a Harvey’s Bristol bottling. It was a lovely, gentle, cedary and elegant wine. In 1978 at a Heublein pre-sale tasting, two bottles from the Ten Broeck mansion, New york, curiously labelled ‘Mise d’A.G. & E.Rothschild’, one low and ‘blown’, the other quiet good, ‘a little tart, but clean’! An exquisite bottle at the Overton tasting in 1979 and a rather varnishy one at Lloyd Flatt’s in 1988. More recently, a spectacular, recorked, Double Magnum: fragrant, gentle, beautifully balanced. Last noted at Eigensatz’s tasting, May 1999.