Wine Advocate
par Robert Parker le 01/04/1995
Latour's 1994 is clearly the top first-growth among the Medocs, in addition to being an early candidate for the "wine of the vintage." Only 52% of the harvest was utilized, and the blend may shock those readers used to the high percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon Latour routinely employs. The 1994 is composed of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, a whopping 27% Merlot (the highest quantity used this century), 4% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit-Verdot. The superb maturity of the Merlot, and the difficulties experienced with some of the cuvees of underripe Cabernet Sauvignon were the reasons behind the selection process. It was a daring but brilliant move. The 1994 Latour is an opaque purple-colored, remarkably powerful, rich, old style wine that, despite the high Merlot content, is one of the most backward and richest wines of the vintage. Latour appears to have everything together in this wine, which possesses gorgeously well-delineated, sweet, highly extracted, concentrated fruit, noticeably ripe tannin, and an explosively long, authoritative finish. It will unquestionably develop into one of the larger-scaled, more massive wines of the vintage, but 10-15 years of cellaring will be required as it is a 40-50 year wine. Administrator Christian Le Sommer and new proprietor, Francois Pinault, were both thrilled with what they achieved in 1994. Chills go up my spine at the thought of what the 1994 Latour would have tasted like had it not rained in September. Bravo!