2004 Smith Haut Lafitte Blanc

Even following what co-owner Florence Cathiard described as "a drastic pruning," it was necessary to carry out a green harvest at the end of July and beginning of August to reduce the crop load. "The clusters were huge, and the grapes were large too," said Cathiard. According to technical director Fabien Teitgen, picking the white grapes was easy, but the red wine harvest was tricky as there was not enough phenolic maturity early on despite good grape sugars. The cabernet here was ultimately harvested from October 13 to 18 with a large team of pickers. The rain during the harvest, though, did not have much of an effect. "The vines did not need water, so they didn't absorb much, and the grapes didn't swell," explained Teitgen. Following a saignee of 10% to 15%, the vinification was gentle and fairly cool. Teitgen did some quick two-minute pumpovers ("like an infusion"), but relied mostly on manual punchdowns to keep the cap wet. He then did up to 40 days of post-fermentation maceration at a fairly cool temperature.