Anson: Tasting 150 years of Lafite Rothschild wines

Lafite Rothschild has opened up its entire back catalogue to mark 150 years since Baron James de Rothschild signed the deeds of ownership. Jane Anson reports on an evening to remember, with wines ranging from 2010 back to 1881.

The Lafite archives consist primarily of many thousands of loose-leaf documents that have been separated into numbered boxes carefully marked from (at least last time I was looking at them) one to 89.

‘Lafite must have one of the most astonishing wine libraries in the world, and is missing only three vintages from the entire 150 years under Rothschild ownership.’

The first box is filled with documents relating to the early sales and purchases of the estate, with title deeds from 1721, 1786 (when it is referred to as La Terre Noble de Lafitte) 1797, 1818, 1821, 1845 and finally August 3, 1868.This last document was signed and delivered on August 28^th, 1868, sealing the purchase from Nicolas Pierre de Prichard to Baron James de Rothschild.

On December 1, 1868, the previous deeds were all stamped by Baron James and his Parisian notaire to attest their authenticity, showing that from the very beginning he was fully aware of the historical importance of his new purchase.

Scroll down to see Jane’s tasting notes & scores for 17 vintages of Château Lafite Rothschild

In total the purchase document accompanying the deed of sale covers 37 closely-spaced pages, with writing that is barely 2mm high, all by hand, detailing the full scope of the Baron’s new prize.

It talks about how you enter the château through a beautiful tree-lined driveway and how its gorgeous park has wonderful views and is ‘the most beautiful in the Médoc’. It then goes on to describe how the Château is set over two floors.

On the ground floor there is, ‘a vestibule, an anti-chamber, a large drawing room, a billiards room, a large dining room, offices, cabinet de travail, kitchen, washroom and underground cellar’, along with a manager’s house with a bedroom, office, kitchen and washroom.

Upstairs, there are 10 bedrooms, all with bathrooms, surely astonishing for the time, plus bedrooms for the staff, with washing and ironing rooms.

In front of the Château the document details a ‘superb’ terrace, then a winery and vat room with 22 wooden vats, stables for six horses, a barrel makers, space for four vehicles, pastureland for six cows, valets’ housing, a forge, a gardener’s house, a fumier, several wells, large cellars, housing for a winemaker and his family that contains a washroom, a kitchen for the harvesters and an attic for the verjus, a wooden hangar, more large storehouses, a vegetable garden, a wash-house and a lake.

The Château and its outbuildings covered 2 hectares, 63ares and 15 centiares, the garden 1ha 56 ares, the lake 12 ares 15 centiares, with vast fields and marshes of around 42ha, in addition to forest land in Lesparre planted with a great variety of trees. The total comes to 123ha, 59 arres, 75 centiares, with just over 63ha of vines directly around the Château that are directly abutting those of Mouton Rothschild (interesting to note that it had already at this point changed its name from Brane Mouton, as Baron James’ nephew and son-in-law Nathaniel had been owner since 1853).

Further vines in St-Estèphe are already detailed in the holdings. Listed separately, but also going to Baron James for an extra 300,000 francs in addition to the 4,140,000 francs paid for Lafite, is a plot called Carruades, located 2km away but still in Pauillac, with six parcels of vines, in total 10ha, 29 ares, 40 centiares.

One of the most striking things about this description is how close it stands to the château as it is in 2018. It still feels like a well-loved, sprawling country house even though we can only guess at how many billions it might go for today. There are no more title deeds to study after 1868, as the Rothschild family has since felt perfectly inclined to keep hold of their Pauillac First Growth.

This makes 2018 the 150^th anniversary of the purchase, and to celebrate the estate has decided to open, in the presence of some extremely lucky guests, every single vintage that they have in their cellars from 1868 to today. Lafite must have one of the most astonishing wine libraries in the world, and is missing only three vintages from the entire 150 years under Rothschild ownership (with a number of even older wines dating back to the late 1700s held in the oldest of the estate’s wine cellars that itself dates back to 1572). The tastings have been split up over several evenings, and I was fortunate enough to attend one of them last week.

The tasting

Our evening covered years from 2010 back to 1881, tasted both in the iconic underground circular cellar designed by Ricardo Bofill, and over supper afterwards, with 16 vintages in total (I have added one other 19th century Lafite that I recently tasted to the notes).

Five of the vintages were tasted (single) blind. They covered both acknowledged stellar years such as 2005 (‘unusual,’ said technical director Eric Kohler, ‘because perfect weather from beginning to end’), 1982 and 1959 to more challenging vintages like 1999 or 1976 – the years where the best properties in Bordeaux seem to perform a sleight of hand by outperforming expectations.

The older wines were even more of a surprise – the 1934 could have been a good 50 years younger, as could the 1917. There is of course no blend or alcohol information available for the older wines, but I was reminded of Emile Peynaud’s tasting of 60 Lafite vintages up to 1920 (that was held in the 1970s and that he wrote about in his book Wine as a Mirror of our Civilisation), where he mentions that only 14 of the wines had alcohol over 10%.

Impossible to experience this lineup without acknowledging that there is indeed a reason why Lafite is Lafite. They were testament to the fact that Lafite is rarely overly-concentrated or muscular, favouring instead complexity, finesse and longevity.

The drink by dates are clearly conservative estimates when you consider that the 1881 and 1894 wines are still going strong (although at the time, as a négociant friend pointed out, these were pre-Phylloxera vines on their own rootstocks, and all estates were using non-chlorinated cork closures).

Impossible also to put much stock by the points system for the oldest wines. They are just a true privilege to open and enjoy – something that Baron Eric clearly agrees with, as he said after the tasting, ’one of the great pleasures of my life is to share these wines with people who love them as much as I do. At the end of the day they are not my wines, they belong to Lafite’.

Jane’s favourite vintages of Lafite Rothschild from this tasting:

See Jane’s tasting note for the Lafite 2017 en primeur wine here

More recently published Premium articles to enjoy: 

Smith Haut Lafitte: All the ‘7s’ back to 1947

Domaine de Chevalier: All vintages tasted from 2000 to 2017

How to join Decanter Premium