2012 Les Forts de Latour

During my week of château visits to inspect the 2017s in barrel, there was of course one significant, recalcitrant property whose wines will not be released onto the Place de Bordeaux this late spring. Château Latour withdrew after the 2011 vintage, since when they have embarked upon a series of bi-annual mature vintage releases, commencing with stock held in reserve during their respective en primeur campaigns. The latest trio includes 7,000 cases of the 2012 Les Forts de Latour, the first time that the property has released a wine hitherto not commercially available. It will be interesting to see how it fares in the market although the real litmus test will be the market reaction to the maiden release of a Grand Vin post 2011. Funnily enough, when I originally tasted the 2012 Les Forts de Latour from barrel I never attached a score. As I quipped to Frédéric Engerer at the time: what is the point of rating a wine when consumers will not taste it until an undesignated point in the future? I might as well wait. As it turned out, I waited five years. After that vintage I have reviewed the wines because consumers wanted to see the scores for all five First Growths, even if they will have to be patient for one. All three releases have something to offer winelovers, whether they wish to splash out on the 2006 Latour, one of my pick of the Left Bank wines ever since I first tasted it from barrel, or the Forts de Latour or Pauillac. The 2006 Grand Vin was recently released to négoçiants at €450/bottle, which equates to around a 15% premium against current market prices. The 2012 Les Forts de Latour has blossomed in bottle, like a majority of wines that growing season, and was just released at €145/bottle. Finally, there is the 2013 Le Pauillac de Latour, a maligned vintage that may surprise those who erroneously dismiss this season out of hand, which is distributed directly to customers by the château.