2003 Les Forts de Latour

Estate manager Frederic Engerer has overseen the production of a Latour for the ages, but he cautions that the 2005 is still a rather extreme vintage in the context of this great Pauillac property. "In 2003 it was the aromas that were at the yellow line," he told me. "In 2005 it was the alcohol. We had some cabernet sauvignon at 13.9%, which is unheard of here. This was the first year we tasted the cabernet berries in the vines and actually swallowed them." The wine in barrel today has an alcohol level of 13.4% but the early impression was of a powerful, austere Pauillac that was still sorting out its components, and whose tannic clout will require a good 15 years of bottle aging. Much of the concentration here came from evaporation of water in the grapes during the first half of September. "We lost the equivalent of ten hectoliters per hectare in the space of ten days," Engerer noted; the ultimate yield was 46 hectoliters per hectare. By the way, here in a nutshell is why the first growths in 2005 are going to be priced at nosebleed levels: "The price of our 2000 is 550 euros today, and the 2003 is 575," said Engerer. "But the market is dry: there are only 250 cases of Latour from the 1995 through 2004 vintages being offered today on the Bordeaux market. So we can't exactly give away our 2005."

According to estate manager Frederic Engerer, the volume of fruit in the Medoc was large in 2004 due to the short crops of the two previous years, but the vines had enough energy in 2004 to ripen their full loads. Latour devoted literally twice as many man-hours to eclaircissage (in late July) as it had done in 2003. There were plenty of polyphenols in 2004, Engerer noted (the IPT is 70, as in 2002-higher than the 65 measured in vintages 2003 and 2000), despite the fact that the skins were thinner than in 2003. Latour practiced a gentle extraction, at temperatures not exceeding 27oC, as this estate has done for the past five or six years. In any event, there were very few pips in the grapes in 2004, and thus less chance of extracting bitter tannins, Engerer added. Latour harvested its merlot during the last week of September, then held off on picking the cabernet until October 7. The harvest did not finish until October 19, making 2004 one of the longest harvests in the history of the estate. The cabernet was unusually ripe, with potential alcohol levels ranging from 12.5% to as high as 13.6%. The blend is a relatively high 89% cabernet, plus 10% merlot and 1% petit verdot and cabernet franc.

Latour took about ten days longer than usual to harvest in 2003. "We took our time," said manager Frederic Engerer, noting that Latour normally picks in two weeks. The merlot was harvested beginning on September 8 to preserve its aromatic freshness, with the cabernet sauvignon coming in between September 22 and 30. Thanks to the thorough ripeness of the skins, said Engerer, "we didn't have to extract too much, and we were able to retain the freshness of the fruit." Engerer added that Latour has been able to consistently ferment at lower temperatures in recent years by "pushing the harvest for riper fruit." The 2003 features a very low 3.15 grams per liter of acidity. Although most early tasters, including this one, consider the 2003 Latour to be one of the top three or four wines of the vintage, Engerer was surprisingly measured in his early assessment of the wine, comparing it to the '89 Latour. Yes, the cabernet reached 13% potential alcohol, which is unprecedented at Latour, he told me. But Engerer also felt that the heat in June and July (even before the sustained period of 100+ degree heat during the first half of August) burned off some of the sugars that normally develop during that period-sugars that are precursors to aromatic complexity. "Two thousand was a perfect growing season," Engerer added, "but 2003 was brutally hot."