2024 Lafite, Carruades & Duhart-Milon En Primeur

A veritable cornucopia of delights from the Lafite Portfolio, available at all great wine merchants from tomorrow, 29th April 2025.

Be sure to react quickly if prices are keen!

2024 Château Duhart-Milon (4ème Cru Pauillac)

78 Cabernet Sauvignon, 22 Merlot: 12.9% alc: Harvested between 24 September and 8 October

This is superb Duhart with sleek, shimmeringly clean flanks and a long, smooth, refined finish.  There is a sense of coolness and calm throughout, and it never seems to break step or feel too urgent.  Unlike last year’s wine, which seemed tense and eager, this is Zen-like and refined, and the finish is generous, with discreet ripples of tannin and acidity, which further heighten the experience.  I hope the price falls sufficiently for newcomers to Duhart to take the plunge.  They will not be disappointed.  17.5/20 QP

2024 Le Blanc de Duhart-Milon (Duhart-Milon)

62 Semillon, 35 Sauvignon Blanc, 3 Sauvignon Gris

Only 8000 bottles were made of this delightful new wine.  Duhart decided, according to Saskia de Rothschild, “to turn land nearer the river than made ok red into delicious white”, and this is certainly a decent effort!  Clean and bright on the nose, with a symphony of lemon zest, rind and peel notes interspersed with refreshing herbal details.  Fairly full-bodied on the mid-palate, there is a shift from a lighter starter-style white to a more main-course-shaped vehicle part-way through the flavour, which is certainly interesting.  What it lacks in length and finesse makes up for its impact and echo.  16.5/20

2024 Carruades de Lafite (Lafite Rothschild)

47 Merlot, 45 Cabernet Sauvignon, 6 Cabernet Franc, 2 Petit Verdot: Harvest was from 23 September to 7 October

This is a stern, chiselled Carruades with all the typical splendour decanted into a slimline, firm, narrow-hipped model.  There is considerable action on the back of the palate, which changes the direction of the energy flow, resulting in a distinct game of two halves.  At first, there is glamour and grandeur, driven by a calmness of attack which suits this label, and then it firms up with superb bitterness and acid/tannin tension.  Yum.  I cannot wait to see how ‘24 Carruades ages.  It has all the ingredients for a long and fascinating life.  18+/20 QP

Château Lafite Rothschild (1er Cru Pauillac)

96 Cabernet Sauvignon, 3 Merlot, 1 Petit Verdot: 32 hl/ha: 12.7% alc: 16% press wine addition: Harvest took place between 23 September and 7 October

It’s always lovely to taste with Saskia de Rothschild, and her fabulously chilled-out comment, “This is an early drinking, accessible Lafite for a new clientele”, is certainly accurate, although I am sure old duffers and even middle-aged wine connoisseurs will be queuing up for this vintage, too.  Whispers abounded that the Lafite family of wines would be endeavouring to attach CPR pads to the notion of En Primeur purchasing by coming out early and with eye-catching prices.  Let’s hope this is borne out because this is not only a wine for newcomers and experts alike, but if this vintage turns out to be anyone’s first sip of this famous First Growth, it is a cosmic place to start.  Linear, lithe, cool, chiselled and dynamic, this is a long, pure, pristine wine with hints of sea spray, fresh-picked blueberries and thrillingly carnal new leather nuances among the glorious summer pudding core.  There is musicality, levity, grace and direction here, and the very first words at the top of my tasting pad were ‘modern Lafite for a new era’!  The control and beauty found are effortless and sensationally well-balanced.  The tannins and acidity lose nothing in translation, balancing the medium-weight fruit with trueness and thrilling sense equilibrium.  Forget vintage reports, the various trials and tribulations and Lafite’s own running theme of battling through the elements while rounding Cape Horn on a galley; this is quite simply as ‘Lafite’ as any vintage I have tasted in a long while, and the fact that it tastes so singular, identifiable and delicious, makes me love it more.  I am awarding a QP here on rumour alone.  Let’s hope I don’t delete it in post-production!  19+/20 QP

MATTHEW JUKES SCORE CONVERSION CHART

As a wine taster and writer, I prefer you to read my words rather than focus on my scores.  This is why I rarely score wines unless I write an extensive report like this one.  I believe that scores taken from the context of tasting notes are essentially meaningless.  I describe my featured wines fully so you can imagine the aroma, shape, and flavour.  Scores don’t help with this.  You will know that several different scoring methods are used in the global wine trade.  Most of my wine-writing colleagues have been tempted to the dark side, using the 100-point rating system.  A few, usually older types, cling to the venerable five-star rating.  As you know, I favour the 20-point score.  It’s how I was taught and dovetails nicely with how I judge wines.  For those unfamiliar with the 20-point scoring system, here is a table that translates it into various other formats.

AND THERE IS MORE – Every year, when I write my Burgundy En Primeur Report, I select only the Rapport Qualité Prix (which I shorten to QP) wines that represent stunning quality and accuracy combined with fair pricing. It is these wines I make a fuss about, and I am extremely strict about only featuring the very most important of the campaign.  Fair pricing is a commodity that has avoided Bordeaux for many years, causing global consternation and, in most cases, a tacit boycott of many of the wines. If wines are released with timid reductions this year or come out with more expensive pricing than any comparable bottled wines already on the market, then I regard this as a miss.  So, for the first time, I will add QP accreditation to my very favourite Bordeaux En Primeur wines.  Suppose these wines are released at appropriate prices (which I deem to be in the 30% reduction compared to last year’s prices and somewhere along the pricing of the 2014s for the most expensive wines). In that case, you should seriously consider buying them.  Remember that lower-priced wines cannot possibly reduce their prices by tens of percentage points because of ever-rising costs.  Bordeaux is a multichannel region, and it must work together across all price points to entice collectors back to the market.