Château Smith Haut-Lafitte 2012

The 2012 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 85/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: A late cycle closing with rain gave an uneven vintage: the cabernets hold up, the merlots remain taut.

Overall reading of the year’s season across Pessac-Léognan. An estate can depart from it sharply, in frost or hail years, where two neighbours did not make the same vintage. What this particular wine actually gave is on its technical sheet and in the scores above.

Tasting

Château Smith Haut Lafitte Rouge 2012 has a beautiful, bright dark red robe with bluish glints. The already-expressive nose reveals very fresh fruity notes of red fruit with a touch of smoke. On swirling, the complexity of the nose reveals itself, with delicate spice notes, red-fruit notes, but also lovely, elegant floral notes. On the palate, this wine is a subtle balance between maturity and freshness: maturity through good concentration, unctuousness and a surprising sweetness, as well as a lovely structure of long, noble tannins; freshness through tension, drive and aromatic brightness. The aromatics are very close to those of the nose, characterised by freshness, with crisp red fruit, spiced notes of liquorice, dried herbs and empyreumatic notes of hearth and gunflint.

Blend of the 2012 vintage

Figures from the 2012 sheet

• 13 % vol.Alcohol
• 38 yrsVine age
• 120,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

During tank filling, the grapes are chilled, encouraging a pre-fermentation maceration in an aqueous phase favourable to the exchange of colour and aroma. Fermentations then begin naturally with the indigenous yeasts of the cellar.

Ageing

18 months in barrels (60% new barrels made in our own in-house cooperage), ageing on lees, a single racking, then ageing adjusted for each wine.

Terroir

The terroir has such a strong personality that it gave the region its name: "Les Graves". These graves are an accumulation of alluvial, sandy and stony deposits laid down on a Tertiary limestone subsoil by the turbulent rivers and glaciers of the early Quaternary era, subsequently reshaped into gravel rises by erosion. At Smith Haut Lafitte, the soil is made up of one of the rare Günzian gravel rises, thick and ochre in colour, a sign of its richness in iron oxide. This soil is of high quality for viticulture because it is at once free-draining, very poor and warm at the surface, while maintaining a degree of coolness and moisture at depth (clay or limestone).