Winemaker Notes
Blend: 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 1% Cabernet Franc
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
The 2009 Lafon-Rochet has a splendid bouquet with dark cherries, iodine, violet and iris flower, certainly the most precocious Lafon-Rochet on the nose thus far. The palate is medium-bodied with very good concentration, rounded in texture and counterbalanced with a fine bead of acidity. Layers of red fruit mixed with spice and cedar demonstrate acceptable length. Tasted at the Lafon-Rochet vertical at the property.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a chateau that is getting better and better. This 2009 is packed with sweet fruit, impressive tannins and a complex dark structure. It is fruity, yet powerful, for good aging.
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Wine Spectator
Juicy and very lively, with lots of briar, currant, cherry, toasty spice and anise notes all framed by bright floral and iron hints. The long finish has excellent cut and drive.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
This wine seems to be one of the few that has not yet recovered from bottling. In a somewhat monolithic, latched-down style, it has plenty of stuffing, lots of structure and an impressive dark ruby/purple color, but it is very hard to coax from the glass. It is a rather classic St.-Estephe made by the Tesseron family, with its distinctive blood orange label, but this wine seems to beg for another 5-7 years of bottle age. The final blend of 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot and 1% Cabernet Franc has some impressive fruit, but the wine just seems slightly more clipped and narrow than I remember it from barrel. Hopefully, time will mellow out this impression. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2035.
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.
Deeply colored, concentrated, and distinctive, St. Estephe is the go-to for great, age-worthy and reliable Bordeaux reds. Separated from Pauillac merely by a stream, St. Estephe is the farthest northwest of the highest classed villages of the Haut Medoc and is therefore subject to the most intense maritime influence of the Atlantic.
St. Estephe soils are rich in gravel like all of the best sites of the Haut Medoc but here the formation of gravel over clay creates a cooler atmosphere for its vines compared to those in the villages farther downstream. This results in delayed ripening and wines with higher acidity compared to the other villages.
While they can seem a bit austere when young, St. Estephe reds prove to live very long in the cellar. Traitionally dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, many producers now add a significant proportion of Merlot to the blend, which will soften any sharp edges of the more tannic, Cabernet.
The St. Estephe village contains two second growths, Chateau Montrose and Cos d’Estournel.