Winemaker Notes
Blend: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Lead-pencil aromas with currants and plums, too. Full body, silky tannins and a focused and very refined finish. It's the tannins that drive things. An excellent second wine of Lafite. Needs two or three years to soften. Start drinking in 2021.
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Wine Enthusiast
This second wine of Lafite comes from young vines and wines selected during the blending. The result is a wine with the structure and nobility of the Lafite character but one that will age more quickly. It has great layers of black-currant fruits and acidity, with firm tannins as a background and rich potential. Drink from 2025.
Cellar Selection -
Jeb Dunnuck
The second wine of Lafite Rothschild is the 2015 Carruades De Lafite and is a beautiful wine in its own right. Based on 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and the rest Cabernet Franc brought up mostly in used barrels, it has classy notes of cassis and lead pencil shavings as well as a medium to full-bodied, elegant, beautifully balanced style on the palate. It’s not a massive wine by any stretch, yet it exudes class and elegance, and is already a joy to drink.
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Decanter
A discreet nose of real finesse with the Lafite violets prettily present. While it seems on the light side now, time in barrel will add structure.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Carruades de Lafite is a blend of 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot and 7% Cabernet Franc. This has a satisfying purity on the nose: blackberry and briary, a distant, cold slate-like note just underneath, with the new oak (close to 20%) neatly subsumed. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin. There is moderate depth to this slightly foursquare and conservative Carruades, but there is also plenty of freshness and it has an appealing, unassuming finish that is both harmonious and precise. Probably one of the most approachable deuxième vins, afford this 2-3 years in bottle before broaching.
Barrel Sample: 89-91 -
Wine Spectator
Warm plum, fig and black tea notes mix here, with a charcoal frame and a smoldering tobacco accent running through the finish. The velvety and slightly rugged textures are intertwined, showing a nice tug of earth at the end. Best from 2022 through 2030.
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
The leader on the Left Bank in number of first growth classified producers within its boundaries, Pauillac has more than any of the other appellations, at three of the five. Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Mouton Rothschild border St. Estephe on its northern end and Chateau Latour is at Pauillac’s southern end, bordering St. Julien.
While the first growths are certainly some of the better producers of the Left Bank, today they often compete with some of the “lower ranked” producers (second, third, fourth, fifth growth) in quality and value. The Left Bank of Bordeaux subscribes to an arguably outdated method of classification that goes back to 1855. The finest chateaux in that year were judged on the basis of reputation and trading price; changes in rank since then have been miniscule at best. Today producers such as Chateau Pontet-Canet, Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste, Chateau Lynch-Bages, among others (all fifth growth) offer some of the most outstanding wines in all of Bordeaux.
Defining characteristics of fine wines from Pauillac (i.e. Cabernet-based Bordeaux Blends) include inky and juicy blackcurrant, cedar or cigar box and plush or chalky tannins.
Layers of gravel in the Pauillac region are key to its wines’ character and quality. The layers offer excellent drainage in the relatively flat topography of the region allowing water to run off into “jalles” or streams, which subsequently flow off into the Gironde.