Ch.Latour 1975 750ml

Wine Advocate#103, Feb 23, 1996
Cream always comes to the top, and so it is with Latour. Given enough time, Latour always seems to emerge as the leader of the Pauillac first-growths. The 1975 appears to be one of the few sure bets among the relatively hard, disappointing 1975 Pauillacs. The color remains a healthy dark ruby, opaque garnet. The nose offers up classic walnut, cedar, minerals, tobacco, and cassis aromas. Although this full-bodied wine is still excruciatingly tannic, I detected plenty of glycerin, extract, and richness, which give me cause for optimism. Nevertheless, it will always be a wine with a firm, tannic edge. Drinkable if decanted several hours in advance, this wine should be cellared until the turn of the century and drunk during the following three decades.

Château Latour is one of Bordeaux's – and the world's – most famous wine producers. It is situated in the southeast corner of the Pauillac commune on the border of Saint-Julien, in the Médoc region. Rated as a First Growth in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification, it has become one of the most sought-after and expensive wine producers on the planet, and produces powerfully structured Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant wines capable of lasting many decades.
Latour's development as a single property came with the beginning of a long unbroken period of connected family ownership, based around the de Segur name, also associated with Mouton and Calon-Ségur. This began in 1670 and lasted 290 years, although after the French Revolution Latour was divided up and not fully reunited until 1841. The château is currently owned by Francois Pinault and is part of his Groupe Artemis.
Typically for the region, Cabernet Sauvignon dominates in the vineyard, accounting for around 80 percent of plantings. Merlot makes up most of the remainder, and there are also small amounts of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. The grand vin is only made from the vineyard plots surrounding the chateau and shown on the 1759 plan of the domaine. Latour makes two other wines: Les Forts de Latour and Pauillac de Latour, both of which are made from younger vines.

Meats, Beef and Venison