Château Smith Haut-Lafitte 2020

Critic scores

• James Suckling99-100
• Jeb Dunnuck100
• Vinous97
• Wine Enthusiast97
• Decanter96

The 2020 vintage in Pessac-Léognan

Vintage benchmark: 94/100 (appellation benchmark, not a score for this wine)

Vintage character: An early, hot year, with a harvest under pressure: a dense, juicy classic, ripe without heaviness.

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

“The robe is very dark red, almost black, with bluish glints. The nose is very expressive, with notes of fresh red and black fruit. On swirling one senses a broader aromatic palette, with spiced notes of star anise and liquorice and empyreumatic, very terroir-driven notes of graphite and pencil lead.

The palate has a very broad attack with a massive, powerful side. Then well-defined unctuousness and texture take over in a wine that is altogether balanced, between substance and softness, between opulence and freshness. The length on the palate is underpinned by a great tannic frame (from the Cabernet Sauvignons, remarkable this year), well wrapped by the well-ripened substance of the Merlots.

The palate is also very aromatic, with great, complex expressions of fruit, mingled with sweet spice, blond tobacco leaf, and notes of graphite and liquorice...” - Fabien Teitgen, Technical Director

Blend of the 2020 vintage

Figures from the 2020 sheet

• 30 hl/haYield
• 48 yrsVine age
• 120,000 bottlesProduction

Winemaking

as whole berries in small wooden vats at 28°C, extraction carried out by hand punching down.

Ageing

18 months in barrels (60% new barrels made in their 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).