Winemaker Notes
Blend: 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 40% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Solid tannins mark this still very young wine. At the same time, the fruit is rich and well proportioned. Black currants dominate the fruity spectrum, giving the wine richness as well as great potential. Drink from 2025.
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James Suckling
Some handy depth here. Ripe dark cherries and blackberries are framed in slightly nutty, cedary and spicy oak. The palate’s built on polished layered tannin sheets, delivering depth and sturdiness amid fresh flavors of dark cherries and cassis. Best from 2022.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2015 Latour Martillac has a spicy nose of cinnamon stick, cloves and aniseed with a core of red and black cherries and a waft of fragrant earth. The palate is medium-bodied with plenty of juicy fruit and a firm frame of fine-grained tannins with bags of freshness lifting the finish.
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Decanter
Silky, sexy, rich damson fruits aged in 30% new oak. A beautiful example of this wine: very strong in an already good vintage. Tannins grip the fruit without strangling; plenty of development potential.
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.
Recognized for its superior reds as well as whites, Pessac-Léognan on the Left Bank claims classified growths for both—making it quite unique in comparison to its neighboring Médoc properties.
Pessac’s Chateau Haut-Brion, the only first growth located outside of the Médoc, is said to have been the first to conceptualize fine red wine in Bordeaux back in the late 1600s. The estate, along with its high-esteemed neighbors, La Mission Haut-Brion, Les Carmes Haut-Brion, Pique-Caillou and Chateau Pape-Clément are today all but enveloped by the city of Bordeaux. The rest of the vineyards of Pessac-Léognan are in clearings of heavily forested area or abutting dense suburbs.
Arid sand and gravel on top of clay and limestone make the area unique and conducive to growing Sémillon and Sauvignon blanc as well as the grapes in the usual Left Bank red recipe: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and miniscule percentages of Petit Verdot and Malbec.
The best reds will show great force and finesse with inky blue and black fruit, mushroom, forest, tobacco, iodine and a smooth and intriguing texture.
Its best whites show complexity, longevity and no lack of exotic twists on citrus, tropical and stone fruit with pronounced floral and spice characteristics.