A four bottle set representing the best years of Chateau Latour, perhaps the most valued of the premier cru classe wineries. Acknowledged by Robert
Parker to be the top four vintages, this is an opportunity to have a vertical tasting of the absolute best, from the best. A bottle each of: 1970 (98 points), 1982 (100 points), 1990 (98 points) and 2000 (98 points). If you could even find the wines today, your minimum cost would be over $2,200!

1970 Latour, Pauillac -- 98 points from Robert Parker:
"One of the top two or three wines of the vintage, this young, magnificent Latour is still 5-10 years away from full maturity. The opaque garnet color is followed by a huge, emerging nose of black fruits, truffles, walnuts, and subtle tobacco/Graves-like scents. Full-bodied, fabulously concentrated and intense, with a sweet inner-core of fruit (a rarity in most 1970 Medocs), and high but well-integrated tannin, this enormously endowed, massive Latour should hits its prime by the end of the century and last for 2-3 decades thereafter. This is will be the longest-lived and potentially most classic wine of the vintage. Cream always comes to the top." (Price: $499.00 -- prices are from K&L, none of these bottles are available)



1982 Latour, Pauillac -- 100 points from Parker!
"The 1982 continues to surge in quality, moving from strength to strength. If I were going to pull the cork for pure pleasure on any of the Big 8, it would be this wine. Still an infant in terms of development, the wine displays extraordinary richness, ripeness, and the beginning of that compelling Latour perfume of cassis, cedar, walnuts, and minerals. Extremely full-bodied, concentrated, and thick, this viscous, chewy, large-scaled wine is also amazingly soft. Huge levels of tannin are concealed behind the layers of fruit. More and more I am convinced that this is another unqualified legend of the vintage... This could be a 50-60 year wine . A tour de force!" (Price: $649.00)

1990 Latour, Pauillac -- 98 points Robert Parker:
"It is an exceptionally powerful wine, with massive intensity, plenty of glycerin, as well as extraordinary extract and mouth-searing tannins that explode on the palate. A triumph!" (Price: $569.00)

2000 Latour, Pauillac -- 100 points Wine Spectator
"Some said that Latour could never top its modern classic, the 1990, but director Frédéric Engerer and his team at this famous first-growth have equaled it with the 2000. It's a young wine that electrifies every taste bud in your mouth. Compact aromas of crushed currants and minerals, with roses and lilacs, it is full-bodied, with masses of silky, refined tannins and a finish that lasts for minutes. Best after 2010." (01/03) 98 points Robert Parker: "There are only 14,000 cases (only 48% of the crop made it into the grand vin) of the 2000, which flirts with perfection. Truly great stuff, it reveals perfect equilibrium, great finesse, yet colossal size, with a thickness and density that rival the brilliant 1996. This saturated black ruby and purple colored wine seems almost discreet on first inspection, but with aeration, notes of vanilla, exceptionally pure, mineral-infused creme de cassis, and earth emerge. Full-bodied and tannic, it should come close to representing perfection. Latour's 2000 is hard to compare with previous vintages. It obviously does not have the opulence of the 1990 and 1982, yet there is an extraordinary purity, delineation, seamlessness, and freshness to this wine that sets it apart from previous vintages. In any event, it is prodigious, with at least five decades of evolution ahead of it. Anticipated maturity: 2005-2050." (Price: $579.00)