Wine Advisor
Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1991
View analysis
Description
Within the five rarefied first growths, Lafite is perhaps the wine with the best reputation for quality and longevity, commanding correspondingly high prices. It is considered by some to be the best wine to come out of Bordeaux. In 1815, Guillaume Lawton said of Château Lafite, “I consider it to be the the most elegant and delicate, with the finest substance of the three (Premier Crus). The location of its vines is one of the finest in the Médoc”. In 1855 the Château was ranked as a Premier Grand Cru in the famous classification that was prepared for the Universal Exhibition of that year. Lafite is also known as the ‘King’s wine’, after being introduced to the Court at Versailles by Maréchal Richelieu.
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Lafite's light-bodied 1991 possesses moderate ruby color, a solid innercore of fruit, as well as potentially excessive tannin for its size and constitution. The wine exhibits Lafite's subtle personality with a leafy, tobacco, lead pencil nose intertwined with sweet aromas of cassis. Dry, austere, and lacking length, it should turn out to be a good representation of Lafite-Rothschild in this so-so year.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted blind from a magnum at Wine magazine's 10-Year horizontal. I was not impressed. A dried out nose. Little structure on the palate with high acidity. Nowhere near the quality of Mouton-Rothschild 1991 or Latour 1991. There a faint echo of sweetness but no structure and incredibly austere. Poor. Tasted April 2001.
1903(1)1907(1)1911(1)1913(1)1945(1)1947(1)1948(1)1949(1)1950(1)1953(1)1954(1)1959(1)1960(1)1961(2)1962(1)1963(1)1964(2)1965(1)1966(1)1967(1)1969(2)1970(4)1971(1)1972(1)1973(2)1974(1)1975(5)1977(1)1978(5)1979(4)1980(2)1981(3)1982(9)1983(8)1984(1)1985(8)1986(15)1987(1)1988(5)1989(14)1990(11)
Package Size
