2001 Château Lafite Rothschild (France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac)

All I can say about this wine is thank you very much to fellow Wine Berserker Mont Stern for bringing this tonight to Berserkerfest 5 at Peking Duck House. Never was there a mention of anyone bringing any first growth Bordeaux, and had I know, I probably would have stepped it up a bit with some Haut Brion so we could do a little side by side comparison.

When I first saw this wine, I told Mont that he was insane, and told him to bring this home and save it for another time. We had plenty of amazing wines on the table, but he wanted to open this. This ended up sitting on the table for quite a while unopened, and I really didn’t think it was going to get popped. Then I saw Jay grab it and open it, so it was pretty much popped and poured.

Gorgeous deep purple/violet color in the glass, but not as dark as I would have expected. Classic Pauillac nose with some pencil lead and cigar box, along with some nice red currants, blackberry, black cherry, and just a hint of plum. The nose is rounded out by some creamy vanilla, oak, and spice, and just a touch of alcohol showing its youth.

Definitely showing some youth as it thins towards the rim in the glass, and from first sip, you can detect a well made wine that just needs more time in the bottle. This wine was very young, with a nice minerality to it, along with more currants and cassis. The fruit here is definitely ripe, but not over ripe. Some blackberry and raspberry round out the palate, with a little stew of red fruits. The tannins were chewy and grippy at first, but as this wine opened, it developed more and more complexity. I detected just a touch alcohol at first, but as this wine opened up over the next two hours, it showed less and less, and the tannins subsided as well.

This was hands down Zelda’s wine of the night, and when she saw ½ the bottle sitting there towards the end of the night, she couldn’t help but revisiting it a for a few more tastes! Do you blame her? Heck no! For me however, this came in second place behind the Ghost Horse. With time, I think that this wine will be amazing, regardless of what people want to say about this vintage. So far we’ve enjoyed all of the ’01 first growths we’ve had, and this was the best ’01 Lafite showing to date for me. 93 points, and thanks again Mont for your generosity! Cheers!