A wine that’s firing on all cylinders is the 2001 Latour and this beauty over-delivers in the vintage! Based on 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, and the balance Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc, it offers incredible aromatics of crème de cassis, exotic spices, lead pencil shavings, forest floor and truffles. Deep, medium to full-bodied, and incredibly elegant, with polished tannin, it’s utterly irresistible today, yet given its balance and length, I suspect it has another 15-20 years of prime drinking.

Made from 79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot, 1% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot, the deep garnet-brick colored 2001 Latour rolls out of the glass with ready-to-go scents of unsmoked cigars, cedar chest, fragrant soil, and iron ore, giving way to a core of prunes and red currant jelly, plus a touch of potpourri. The medium-bodied palate is wonderfully racy and energetic with lightly chewy tannins and a minerally finish. (LPB)

The 2001 Latour has an exquisite bouquet of blackberry, hints of sloe, cedar and mint, all very complex and beautifully defined. A slight pitted black olive aroma surfaces with time. The palate is medium-bodied with precise tannins and white and black pepper mixed with clove and tobacco. Pauillac through and through; Latour through and through. This is actually one of the best bottles of the 2001 that I have tasted, and it will battle it out with the 2002 for supremacy. (NM)