Les Forts de Latour 1997
Pauillac
12 bottles per lot

Type: Red Wine
Grape Varietal: Cabernet Sauvignon Blend
Country: France
Region: Bordeaux

ABOUT THE WINE
Château Latour manages to achieve a rare stylistic balance, in that its wines are internationally known for both their elegance and purity of linear fruit flavor, and for their power, muscularity and heroic longevity. Few wines age with such consummate grace as those of Château Latour. These wines are highly tannic in youth, and are famously distinctive in the way they mature slowly, and on their own terms; stubbornly refusing to succumb to the effects of the natural passing of time. The other great hallmark of Latour is its consistency – the wines are consistently impressive, irrespective of whether the vintage is great, mediocre or even slightly disappointing. The 47 hectares which surround the Château are called "l'Enclos". Only the grapes from these 47 hectares make it into the "Grand Vin de Château Latour". The soils vary from clayey gravel on a subsoil of marly sediment, gravelly sands with small pebbles and marly clay which suits Merlot. All the soils are characterized by excellent drainage which encourages the vines to develop deep roots in search of nutrients and water. Frédéric Engerer, the President, along with the vineyard manager, Domingo Sanchez and the cellar-master, Pierre-Henri Chabot have ensured that grape selection is paramount, and only grapes from vines that are at least 25 years old are allowed into the Grand Vin. Hand–harvesting and a first sorting are carried out by 200 pickers, before being transported to the winery for the second round of sorting and destemming. The winery contains 66 temperature controlled stainless steel vats which enables the separate vinification of different plots. By December the wine is in new oak barrels, where it remains for about 18 months with rackings about every three months. Blending is completed by March the following year, with fining with egg white, but since 1999 there is no filtration and the wine is returned to vat for a month prior to bottling. As Stephen Brook writes in “The Complete Bordeaux”; “No other Médoc wine can match Latour for power, depth of flavour, and grandeur.”