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2019 Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte

Not Currently In Auction

Latest Sale Price

June 22, 2025 - $92

Estimate

RATINGS

99James Suckling

Intense blackberry and graphite character coming out of the glass, together with dried violets, ink and some asphalt. Full-bodied with wonderfully integrated tannins that spread across the palate and then draw you deep into the wine. Lead-pencil and blackcurrant aftertaste. Tightly wound with a cashmere-like texture. A whole and thought-provoking wine.

98Jeb Dunnuck

...rich, powerful style in its cassis, blueberry, and black raspberry fruit as well as its chalky minerality, smoked earth, tobacco, and lead pencil shaving-like aromas and flavors...rich, unctuously textured beauty has terrific concentration, sweet tannins, and the vintage's hallmark elegance and finesse.

97Vinous / IWC

...blossoms immediately on the nose of seductive blackberry, black olive and Bing cherries...Burgundy-like purity. The palate is medium-bodied with a smooth, almost creamy entry. This is very harmonious, elegant and poised, leading to a mineral-driven finish.

96The Wine Advocate

...complex bouquet of dark berries, cassis, forest floor, pencil shavings, licorice and spices. Full-bodied, broad and velvety, it's layered and elegantly muscular, underpinned by rich structuring tannins and lively acids, and it concludes with a long, expansive finish.

96Wine Enthusiast

...great richness with spice, one of a line of great whites from this estate. Tropical fruits and generosity give a ripe, full-bodied wine, that is immediately attractive.

95Wine Spectator

...broad, rich and caressing wine, with a lovely display of cassis, plum puree and blackberry pâte de fruit notes...buried alder note, along with sweet tobacco and iron accents on the finish. A strong showing.

17+ Jancis Robinson

Good freshness and a certain sinewy, mineral quality that strikes me as quintessential Graves. Drive, and something that really spreads across the palate.

PRODUCER

Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte

Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte is a classified Grand Cru of the Pessac-Leognan appellation. Though it dates to the 14th century, it was an 18th-century owner from Scotland who gave the château its name, Smith. In 1990 the estate was purchased by Daniel Cathiard, a former French Olympic skier and heir to a French supermarket chain. With his wife Florence, a former international advertising executive, he runs the 170-acre estate. About 10,000 cases of red wine are produced each year, and 3,000 cases of white. The two second labels are Le Petit Haut-Lafitte and Les Hauts de Smith, both made with estate fruit. Robert M. Parker Jr. has written that “since its acquisition by the Cathiards, this property has become one of Bordeaux’s success stories, producing elegant, flavorful, complex, very complete wines.”

REGION

France, Bordeaux, Graves, Pessac-Léognan

Pessac-Léognan was created in 1987 from the northern part of the left bank Graves appellation. Before then it was simply part of Graves, or sometimes it was called Haut-Graves. Unlike many other Bordeaux appellations, Pessac-Léognan is known for both red and dry white wines, although its reds are more famous. The appellation includes ten communes and the area’s most important châteaux, including Château Haut-Brion, the only non-Médoc estate included in the 1855 Bordeaux classification. There are 2,964 acres of vineyards in Pessac-Léognan and 16 classified growth estates. The main red grapes grown are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, along with a small amount of Cabernet Franc. White grapes grown are Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon, with a little Muscadelle. Pessac-Léognan is considered to have the best terroir of the greater Graves region.

VINTAGE

2019 Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte