Les Forts de Latour 2016

Jane Anson - Inside Bordeaux

Wine Enthusiast

Andreas Larsson - Tasted

Pure, aromatic, intense and floral nose with fresh dark berries, black currant, dark raspberry, sage and gravelly notes with fine tuned oak in the background. The palate offers a lovely combination of concentration, freshness and vigour with layers of crushed dark berry fruit, sage, bay leaf and tobacco notes and a very intense, fresh and lingering finish. An impressive wine with impeccable balance.

Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider

Lively and fresh, with cedar, cigar wrapper, tobacco leaf, mint, flowers, and dark currants in the nose. The wine is polished, fresh, rich, elegant, concentrated, and regal on the palate. The crisp, mildly peppery, dark red fruits with more of that refreshing mint character really shine through to the finish. Drink 2026-2045.

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2016 Les Forts de Latour is superb, unwinding in the glass with notions of blackcurrants, wild berries, sweet loamy soil, cigar wrapper and English walnuts. Medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, it’s concentrated and tightly wound, with superb depth at the core, lively acids and ripe, powdery tannins. This is an impeccably balanced, utterly classical Forts de Latour worth a special effort to seek out.

With Château Latour's new releases for the year arriving on the market in the next few days, I took the opportunity to taste the wines with the estate's perfectionist technical director Hélène Génin on my most recent visit. I'll be including more insights into Latour's contemporary viticulture and winemaking—as well as some observations on what makes Latour's famous enclos so special—in my report on the bottled 2019s. This short article, in the interests of timeliness, is limited to the tasting notes themselves. As those notes make clear, between the expressive, charming 2017 Le Pauillac de Château Latour; the concentrated, impeccably balanced 2016 Les Forts de Latour; and the deep, introverted, utterly classical 2014 Latour itself, admirers of this estate will find three excellent wines that are cut from very different cloth, and all three are more than worthy of attention.

Jeb Dunnuck

The second wine of this great château, the 2016 Les Forts De Latour continues to impress. I commented on release that it was the best wine in the vintage, and my opinion hasn't changed. This beauty offers plenty of classic Latour character as well as notes of blackcurrants, saddle leather, lead pencil shavings, and dried flowers. Full-bodied, concentrated, and perfectly balanced, it's just now starting to round into form and will no doubt continue drinking well for another 2+ decades. It's a gorgeous Pauillac.

Decanter Magazine

Violet scented dark black cherries and figs on the nose, quite powerful. Tannins are generous but they're juicy and plump, soft almost chalky, they have a really great impact, filling the mouth together with the fruit. Everything has melded together, super balanced and all very harmonious - still clearly powerful with precision and sculpting of the fruit and a long finish with the flavours going on and on. Good acidity gives freshness and a real rush of strawberry and cherry juice on the first sip lifts and sustains the palate the whole way. Such a charming wine with great impact and presence.