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Lafite-Rothschild 1982

Château Lafite-Rothschild, Bordeaux, France

Château Lafite-Rothschild
Bordeaux France
  • 99
    Points
  • The 260 best
    of 3 290 954
    wines globally
  • 29 Pros of
    31 recommend
    this wine
1059 99
  • Taste
  • Moment

  • Country ranking ?

    222

  • Producer ranking ?

    12

  • Decanting time

    3h

  • When to drink

    now-2035

  • Food Pairing

    Lamb Loin with Carrot Risotto

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Is Lafite the best-performing asset of the noughties?

Is a case of 1982 Lafite Rothschild the best-performing asset of the last decade? A 12-bottle case of 1982 Lafite Rothschild has increased in price by 857% over the last ten years, from £2,613 to £25,000.

The best-performing equity on the LSE (British American Tobacco) increased in price 454% over the same period, while gold prices are up 297%.Overall, fine wine has proved itself one ...

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The Story

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 F...

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Wine Information

Vintage: 1982 Bordeaux / James Suckling

The 1982 vintage in Bordeaux changed the wine world as well as changed my life. It was the first vintage I tasted from barrel as a young wine writer working for the American magazine The Wine Spectator, and I was amazed how gorgeous the quality of a young red could be from barrel.
I remember the first barrel samples I tasted during the summer of 1983 at Chateau Prieure-Lichine with the late wine auth...

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Vintage 1982

The 1982 vintage in Bordeaux changed the wine world as well as changed my life. It was the first vintage I tasted from barrel as a young wine writer working for the American magazine The Wine Spectator, and I was amazed how gorgeous the quality of a young red could be from barrel.

I remember the first barrel samples I tasted during the summer of 1983 at Chateau Prieure-Lichine with the late wine author and vintner Alexis Lichine. The wines ...

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Average Bottle Price

2023 2021 2019 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2005 2000 1995
2 150€ +8.6% 1 980€ -12.0% 2 250€ -13.1% 2 590€ +3.6% 2 501€ +19.2% 2 099€ -21.8% 2 683€ -2.2% 2 743€ -0.4% 2 754€ -19.3% 3 411€ +58.7% 2 150€ +305.7% 530€ +70.4% 311€ +32.9% 234€

This data comes from the FINE Auction Index, a composite of average prices for wines sold at commercial auctions in 20 countries. The average prices from each year have been collected since 1990. This chart plots the index value of the average price of the wines.

Latest Pro-tasting notes

38 tasting notes

Tasting note

color

Deep, Purple and Pale

ending

Medium, Pure and Round

flavors

Blackcurrant, Pepper, Toasty, Cedar, Blackberry and Vanilla

nose

Pure, Complex, Opulent and Intense

recommend

Yes

taste

Average in Acidity, Warming, Medium tannin, Well-Integrated, Balanced, Well-structured, Developing, Light, Focused, Round, Rich, Dry and Too tannic

Verdict

Well-rounded and Full-bodied

Written Notes

Bordeaux was next, beginning with a trio of 1982s.  It’s tough to reconcile how when I started in the business about 20 years ago, the 1961s were in the same spot that the 1982s are now.  They are now the 61s of twenty years ago!  Somehow, it just doesn’t compute, but that’s what it is.  We kept it all Pauillac, and all First Growth, beginning with the 1982 Lafite Rothschild.  The Lafite has always been one of the more elegant ‘82s, and this bottle was clean and lean with long and pleasing, classic qualities.  The pencil and cedar dueled in its nose, and LA Confidential found its ‘perfume longer.’  This was a beauty not a beast, and surprisingly good with a beet dish, although I was dreading the combination.  It actually pushed it from that 95/96 point border to (96).

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  • 96p

The 1982 Lafite-Rothschild can be a variable performer. There was a period when it was dwarfed by Latour. However, two recent bottles demonstrate a wine that perhaps has just taken 30+ years to reach its zenith. The bouquet is very intense with blackberry, cedar, graphite and hints of morels, gathering momentum in the glass, perhaps with just a touch more VA than its peers. The palate is medium-bodied and very fresh, lively and tensile with a fine thread of acidity. There is more cohesion and finesse than bottles encountered a decade ago, and a delicate but firm structure that frames the pure blackberry and cedar notes on the sustained finish. Wonderful. Tasted at the Lafite-Rothschild dinner at Amuse Bouche in Hong Kong and then blind at the Lafite-Rothschild 150th anniversary dinner at the property.

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  • 97p

The fruit is quite pretty. There is an elegance and purity to the red berries that shows, but the wine is also light for the vintage. Refined, elegant, silky and pure, with cherry, cedar and tobacco notes that carry through, this is drinking where it needs to be. I just wish it showed more depth and intensity, especially considering the vintage, and how well the other First Growths did in this vintage.

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  • 96p

This is a denser version of the 1990 that stylistically reminds me of what the young 1959 probably tasted like. Still backward with a deep ruby/plum color revealing only a touch of lightening at the edge, the wine offers up an extraordinary nose of caramelized herbs, smoke, cedar, pen ink, black currants, and earth. The gorgeous aromatics are followed by a full-bodied, plump, rich, fleshy wine with low acidity. With 6-8 hours decanting in a closed decanter, it will offer beautiful drinking, but it needs another 5-8 years to reach full maturity. It is capable of lasting 50-60 years. This classic Lafite is not as fat and concentrated as the 1982 Latour, nor as complex or concentrated as the 1982 Mouton Rothschild, but it is a winner all the same.

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  • 97p
Lafite Rothschild 1982 97+p Incredibly refined and sophisticated aromas on the nose, aristocratic, fabulous complexity and richness. Simply outstandig wine with 50 years long life.
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  • 97p
Dark, ruby red colour. Wonderfully open, classic, Pauillac nose – cedar, blackcurrants, cigarbox, gentle toastiness and some nutmeg. Medium-bodied, absolutely polished palate with refined silky tannins, pristine purity of black fruits, and so elegant and mouthwatering lingering finish. Astonishing wine!
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  • 99p
Deep ruby. Floral notes, some cassis, licorice, very scented. Fresh acidity, ripe tannins, velvety texture, good fruit. Way better after an hour, but, not optimal.
-
  • 93p
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Information

Origin

Pauillac, Bordeaux

Vintage Quality

Outstanding

Release state price

42$

Investment potential

Good

Fake factory

Serious

Glass time

2h

Drinking temperature

18C

Inside Information

Chateau Lafite Rothschild ’82 Chinese Counterfeits

One of the major victims of Chinese counterfeiting is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild ’82, a Bordeaux that has gained more popularity in China than in its home country.

The Chinese counterfeit industry has added a new item to its production line: vintage French wine. Impossible to tell a genuine bottle from a fake one, many unsuspecting customers will remain none the wiser until their first sip. And even then, only a connoisseur could taste the difference.

Today, a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild from 1982 can fetch up to 5,400 euros. That means around 5,000 euros of profit per bottle for a resourceful counterfeiter — and there are plenty of those in China. Lucas Botebol, one of the Zhongguo bloggers, estimates that some 70% of the Chateau Lafite sold in the country must be fake due to the fact that the sales numbers vastly outstrip the import figures. “There is more Lafite ’82 in China than was produced in France,” Romain Vandevoorde, head of wine importer Le Baron, told AFP. “So you really have to be wary if you find any of that in China.”

JPEG - 20.3 kb

“A bottle of wine is very easy to replicate,” Sheng Wen*, a wine seller from Shanghai. “The counterfeiters search for original bottles in restaurant trash. Once they’ve got hold of one, they reproduce the label and replicate the bottle. They then buy mid-range bottles of wine from the supermarket, pour them into the fake bottles, and sell them.”

A new penchant for Bordeaux made China and Hong Kong the world’s biggest Bordeaux importers in 2010. Some 33.5 billion bottles made their way into the country, and straight into the dragon’s den of counterfeit expertise. Like any valuable product, it didn’t take long for the fakes to start lining the shelves.

One of the major victims of Chinese counterfeiting is the Chateau Lafite Rothschild ’82, a Bordeaux that has gained more popularity in China than in its home country. Described as “the reference” Bordeaux by Zhongguo Wine, a blog on the Chinese wine market run by two French expats, the price for a bottle shot up by 574% between 2001 and 2010 after sales in China went through the roof.

 

 

 

Wine Advocate #183
Jun 2009		 Robert M. Parker, Jr. 97+ Drink: 2014 - 2074 $2100-$8975
This is a denser version of the 1990 that stylistically reminds me of what the young 1959 probably tasted like. Still backward with a deep ruby/plum color revealing only a touch of lightening at the edge, the wine offers up an extraordinary nose of caramelized herbs, smoke, cedar, pen ink, black currants, and earth. The gorgeous aromatics are followed by a full-bodied, plump, rich, fleshy wine with low acidity. With 6-8 hours decanting in a closed decanter, it will offer beautiful drinking, but it needs another 5-8 years to reach full maturity. It is capable of lasting 50-60 years. This classic Lafite is not as fat and concentrated as the 1982 Latour, nor as complex or concentrated as the 1982 Mouton Rothschild, but it is a winner all the same. Release price: ($350.00/case)
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