Sweet start and a dry end. Long and reverberant with real meatiness in the middle. Transparent and fresh - lighter than many vintages of Ch Latour. Slightly inky finish.

Medium-deep red. Great vibrant nose of redcurrant, licorice, minerals and tobacco, along with a minty austerity. Thick and large-scaled, like an essence of Pauillac. Really explodes in the middle palate. Incredible unfolding peacock tail of a finish. A monumental, powerfully structured wine with great long-term aging potential. Drink 2008 through 2040.

This is one of my favorite wines ever. Full-bodied, with layers of silky fruit and masses of currant, mineral and berry character. Amazing. It's a wine with perfect structure, perfect strength. It's 1961 Latour in modern clothes. It's hard not to drink it now.

This is one of the more perplexing Latours to evaluate. It has plenty of sweetness as well as a gorgeous, rich fruitiness, but it lacks the firmness one finds in more recent great vintages such as 1996, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2008. There is plenty of sweet, ripe currant fruitiness, abundant glycerin, and full body, but I’m still waiting for that extra nuance of complexity to emerge. It’s all there, but the wine still seems to be more monolithic than one would expect in a wine approaching 19 years of age. It is not the sure-fire winner I thought it was in its youth, but then again, I don’t have any reason to doubt that more complexity will emerge. Anticipated maturity: 2016-2035.