Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A structure and long red with beautiful cabernet fruit, currants and hazelnuts. It's medium- to full-bodied with a firm and slightly chewy texture and a persistent finish. 60% cabernet sauvignon and 40% merlot.
Barrel Sample: 95-96 -
Jeb Dunnuck
Notes of smoky tobacco, blackcurrants, scorched earth, and gravelly earth all emerge from the 2025 Le Petit Smith Haut Lafitte, the second wine of Smith Haut Lafitte and a terrific effort in the vintage. Based on 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, it's rich and medium to full-bodied on the palate, with a pure, concentrated, layered style, ripe tannins, and a great finish.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Decanter
Supple and juicy with both ripe creamy fruit and lively acidity as well as firm structure. I like the Cabernet aspect – blackcurrant leaf, bramble berries, fresh mint, concentrated, dark and cool with a delicious wet stone, flinty, salty aspect. Not too dense but there’s length and good body with a real push of aromas and fragrance as well as intensity of flavour all the way through. Very good. 3.6pH. A yield of 28hl/ha. Began the red harvest from the 3 September to the end.
Barrel Sample: 94 -
Vinous
The 2025 Le Petit Smith Haut Lafitte is redolent of blue/purplish fruit, lavender, spice, menthol, new leather, licorice and espresso. Medium in body, with fine energy, Le Petit Smith offers plenty of Cabernet Sauvignon savoriness to match its mid-weight personality. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 91-93
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.