Château Latour

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Château Latour label

Tower at Château Latour

In most appraisals of the wine-growing world, the five First Growth Châteaux of the famous 1855 Bordeaux Classification are placed among the very best in the world. Of those, one of the most highly regarded in terms of consistency of its red wines is Château Latour.

Château Latour lies at the very southeastern tip of the commune of Pauillac in the Médoc region to the north-west of Bordeaux, at its border with Saint-Julien, and only a few hundred metres from the banks of the Garonne estuary.

The estate has 65 hectares of vineyard, and produces up to 40,000 cases of wine each year. Its vines are 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, and around 2 or 3% of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.

The Château makes three principal wines, all red; in addition to its world famous 'Grand Vin de Château Latour', it has produced 'Les Forts de Latour' since 1966, and since 1990 a third simply labelled 'Pauillac'. The Grand Vin is generally 75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot.

1 History
2 Vintages
3 Awards
4 See also
5 References
- 5.1 External link

[edit] History

The site has been occupied since at least the early 14th century, and in the late 14th century a garrison fort was built 300 metres from the estuary to guard against attack during the Hundred Years' War. This tower, the Saint-Maubert Tower or La Tour en Saint-Maubert, gave its name to the estate around the fortress and was in British hands until the Treaty of Castillon in 1453.

The original tower no longer exists, but in the 1620s a circular tower (La Tour de Saint-Lambert) was built on the estate and though it is actually designed as a pigeon roost remains a strong symbol of the vineyard.

Although vines have existed on the site since the 14th century, Latour's history as one of the world's greatest vineyards began in the late 17th century when it was inherited by Alexandre de Ségur, who added Château Lafite in 1716. In 1718 his son Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur expanded his holdings by purchasing Château Mouton and Château Calon and began producing wines of great quality.

Although lagging behind Château Lafite in terms of standing, the wines of Latour grew in stature and by 1800 were worth twenty times that of standard Bordeaux. Its classification as one of the four First Growths in 1855 assured its continued success and in the 1860s the present château was built.

In 1963 the estate finally left the Ségur family when its heirs sold three quarters of the Château Latour shares to the British companies Harveys of Bristol and the Pearson Group. In 1989 it was purchased by Allied Lyons for around £110 million, and in 1993 returned to French ownership when bought by businessman François Pinault for £86 million.

Latour's great vintages are famed for their longevity, requiring longer to mature than most other great clarets. It is also known for consistently producing exceptional wines even in comparatively poor vintages, when other vineyards yield only disappointing results. Latour was also the first of the First Growths to modernize their whole production, replacing the old oak fermenting vats with stainless steel in the 1960s.