Château Smith Haut Lafitte

The finest wine ever made by proprietors Daniel and Florence Cathiard, the 2009 Smith-Haut-Lafitte exhibits an opaque blue/purple color in addition to a glorious nose of acacia flowers, licorice, charcoal, blueberries, black raspberries, lead pencil shavings and incense. This massive, extraordinarily rich, unctuously textured wine may be the most concentrated effort produced to date, although the 2000, 2005 and 2010 are nearly as prodigious. A...

The noble Bosq family started growing grapes here as early as 1365. The property was purchased in the 18th century by Scotsman George Smith, who gave the estate its present name. He also built the manor house and exported his – by now famous – wine to England on his own ships. 

In 1842, Mr. Duffour-Dubergier, Mayor of Bordeaux and an enthusiastic winegrower, inherited Château Smith Haut Lafitte from his mother and brought the wine up to great...

Our appellation has such a strong personality that it has given its name to our region: THE GRAVES.

These graves, or gravelly soil, consist of layers of alluvial, sandy, and stony soil deposited on a limestone subsoil by tumultuous rivers and glaciers during the Quaternary Period. This soil was later affected by erosion.

At Smith Haut Lafitte, we have a rare example of a croupe, or rise of Günze gravel. 
This is thick and ochre-coloured, ref...

As for the white wines, we also focus the same meticulous, almost fanatical attention on winemaking: 
The way we sort the grapes is an excellent example of our respect for the ripe fruit throughout the winemaking process.

Putting into vat: The whole, uncrushed berries are taken to the appropriate vat via a small 3 hl mobile vat. The grapes fall into the vat by gravity flow, yet another example of the estate's emphasis on quality: The fruit...

The Bio Precision approach, native of the Château Smith Haut Lafitte, aims to match the most innovative viticulture and vinification techniques with the greatest respect of the living: the soil and the vine.

This method promotes the bio diversity and the balance of the vineyard ecosystem through hedge plantation, use of natural grass, production of organic compost or horse ploughing among other techniques. 

It focuses as well on preserv...