Lafite-Rothschild 1858

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5* Michael Broadbent

“By 1858 ,an effective anti-oidium treatment had been discovered and applied and, as if to make up for the five previous poor vintages, a hot summer led to a healthy harvest towards the end of September. This year marked the start of an extremely prosperous period, particularly for the Bordeaux merchants.

Seven notes. This was the oldest vintage of Lafite from the cellars of Lord Rosebery, which featured in Christie’s landmark sale of ‘Finest and Rarest Wines’ in May 1967 a single lot of four magnums which sold for 5300 shillings per six.

At the pre-sale tasting it was crisp, fragrant but thinning. Two years later, a very good bottle from the château at Overton’s Lafite tasting. Other bottles variable but all remarkably flavoury, some with a prickle of acidity made up for by the wine’s scent.

In all seven notes, the last recorded: a warm amber colour; a short burst of exquisite, quintessentially Lathe fragrance; lean, clean, delicious. Last noted at Lloyd Flatt’s Lafite tasting, Oct 1988 

The Château Lafite estate run by the Rothschilds is, with its 100 hectares of cultivated land, the largest of the main Pauillac vineyards.

It is located in the highest part of the area and the view from its château, with its conical towers that appear on the label, takes in the banks of the River Gironde, which flows nearby. The wines are a blend of four different varieties of grape – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petite Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Lafite matures slightly earlier than other Premier Cru wines in the region on account of the generous amounts of Merlot used, and it is this that also makes the wine more delicate and subtle than those wines which are completely dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Lafite has a soul, a beautiful, generous, kindly soul. Lafite turns bare earth into heaven. Lafite is harmony, a harmony between man and nature, because without our magnificent winegrowers, nothing would be accomplished.”
Baron Eric de Rothschild 

Of the five Premier Cru wines in the region, Château Lafite to my mind has managed to produce the year’s best wine in many of the top years in 1900th centrury. The times I have spent in the company of a 1934, 1953, 1959, 1982 and 1986 have been unforgettable. And it was then that I always remembered how many wine critics fondly describe Lafite as ‘the perfection of elegance’.

Vineyard soil: fine gravel mixed with aeolien sands on a bedrock of tertiary limestone
Production area: 103 ha
Grape varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon (71%), Merlot (25%), Cabernet Franc (3%) and Petit Verdot (1%)
Average age of vines: 30 years
Harvest method: hand picked
Winemaking: the vinification is nowadays done with all the sophisticated instruments which modern oenology has created. Fermentation takes place in large oak vats in which the musts remain for 18 to 25 days.
Ageing: the wines are aged entirely in new barrels for 18 to 24 months. During this time,the wine is racked 7 times and is fined with the whites of 6 eggs per barrel. Only certain vats are selected to make the Grand Vin, Lafite. The others are used to make the second wine of Lafite, the “Carruades de Lafite”.