Winemaker Notes
The 2016 Latour-Martillac is pale yellow color with sparkling highlights and has complex aromas of both floral (verbena, honeysuckle) and some exotic fruits (passion fruit) and lemon. The palate is beautifully fresh and is balanced by a delicious creaminess. In the mouth, there is elegance with the same complex, fruity aromas of white peach and ripe apricots as well as the floral note of verbena and fresh mint. This wine is remarkably long length on the finish. This is good for drinking over the next 8-10 years and is a blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Semillon.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This estate, owned by the Kressmann family, is particularly known for its white. Lightly wood aged, this wine is already delicious, boasting great citrus and white fruits, and sure to be delicious.
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James Suckling
A succulent and punchy style with very assertive, yellow-grapefruit and lemon aromas and a super concentrated, long, focused palate that is very tightly contained for now. The finish holds so long. Age without reservation. Try from 2021.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2016 Château Larrivet Haut-Brion Blanc is 80% Sauvignon and 20% Sémillon brought up in a mix of new and used barrels of varying sizes. It offers a serious bouquet of white graphite, caramelized lemons, crushed rocks, and just hints of brioche. With beautiful purity, a balanced, juicy, layered texture, and a great finish, this outstanding Bordeaux Blanc will keep for over a decade.
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Decanter
A good quality wine. As in many vintages, I have a slight preference for the red over the white, but it's hard not to enjoy this citrus and peach mid-palate, given a rosemary, salty lick on the finish, with persistency helped by a firm punch of lime zing.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Latour Martillac 2016 Blanc is a little closed on the nose, offering up glimpses of lemon peel, yuzu and fresh grapefruit scents with hints of wet pebbles and lanolin. Medium-bodied, the palate has plenty of exuberant citrus fruit with a lively backbone and minerally finish.
Sometimes light and crisp, other times rich and creamy, Bordeaux White Blends typically consist of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. Often, a small amount of Muscadelle or Sauvignon Gris is included for added intrigue. Popularized in Bordeaux, the blend is often mimicked throughout the New World. Somm Secret—Sauternes and Barsac are usually reserved for dessert, but they can be served before, during or after a meal. Try these sweet wines as an aperitif with jamón ibérico, oysters with a spicy mignonette or during dinner alongside hearty Alsatian sausage.
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.