Medium-pale yellow. The nose is wide and dense, with deep with a concentrated core of chunky pineapple – you have to wait for quite some time before higher-toned, more floral aspects, eventually peek through. Fresh and ebullient on the tongue, starting narrow and widening on the mid-palate. ‘Just enough’ acidity comes late and there’s a nice extra edge of slightly chalky fruit flavour as you go into the finish. The texture is good and so is the flavour, but there’s far from exciting concentration. I would need a little more acid ‘cut’ before I could describe this as mineral. Tasty and clean but initially hard to get worked up about. Right until the bottle was drained, this wine continued to improve. It didn’t speak to me enough to make me want to re-buy, but the wine at the end (3 hours) was far better than the start.
Latour Louis
2005 Latour Louis Chambertin
2006 Latour Louis Bâtard-Montrachet
1983 Latour Louis Montrachet
Golden. Deep and sweet nose with butterscotch and lanolin. The palate is intense without weight. Very nice acidity though lower than some – but that doesn’t seem to have harmed it. Overall a very impressive wine that has depth and still plenty of ripe fruit, but just missing an extra zip for the absolute top prize.
1999 Latour Louis Santenay
Medium ruby red. The nose is very powdery and slightly spicy but showing an undercurrent of red fruit. The palate is a bit of a let-down, not even middle-weight flavour or concentration and a slightly strange aftertaste – storage or the wine? Not sure, but this bottle isn’t worthy of the vintage the appellation or the producer.
1989 Latour Louis Corton Château Corton Grancey
Looks relatively pale as you pour the wine, but gives a surprisingly deep amber/brown in the glass. The nose seems to be of a much more ancient vintage than 89, but it’s sweet and a little meaty, still a little stewing, pruney fruit. The palate has depth, good acidity and still a little rasp on the (mostly) resolved tannins. It’s a perfectly mature and perfectly pleasant wine – not one to get overly excited over though.
1997 Latour Louis Savigny-lès-Beaune
Pale lemon yellow. The nose starts with a whiff of sulfur, replaced by lime and waxy grapefruit – there’s also a quite appealing smokey undertow of wood. The palate has some fat and very primary fruit. There’s also slightly harsh wood, but the acidity and fruit concentration are not bad at all. Not as satisfying to drink today as most of the Bourgogne blancs from the tasting in the ‘summer issue’, but comes across as being too young. Hopefully with another three years or so there might be a little more interest.