Bubbling over with crushed berries, currants and spices, with tobacco notes. Beautiful. Full-bodied, with gorgeously velvety tannins and a long finish of pretty fruit. This is a racy yet elegant Lafite. Classy. Best after 2010. 16,000 cases made. –JS

Still youthful, the wine is on the bright, crisp, crunchy side of the style range. The red berries are quite vibrant, with a mint, herb, tobacco, and cedar coating on the palate, and in the sweet, and tart, cherry, cranberry, olive, herb, and citrus finish. This is quite classic in an old-school style. Drink from 2024-2042.

A brilliant offering and a candidate for wine of the vintage this is classic Lafite...This is a medium-weight quintessentially elegant style of Lafite with notes of lead pencil shavings/graphite along with black currants plums and crushed rocks/mineral. Wonderfully pure dense with a deep ruby/purple color and loads of fruit definition and a long finish this is a brilliant elegant Lafite Rothschild that builds incrementally in the mouth and has more power and density than it initially seems...

Another Indian summer vintage (with useful northerly winds) that followed a difficult July and August. This has still-tight tannins and remains deep in colour, with just the very beginnings of whispering its age. After a few minutes in the glass, cigar notes curl up and out, followed by beautifully elegant, savoury-edged black fruit and tea leaf notes. This was extremely austere at first, but it's now beginning to soften and is likely to develop similarly to the 1999, which makes it one to watch. Will reward further cellaring.

Tasted blind at Farr’s 2002 Bordeaux tasting. Very deep colour. The nose is complex and intense with aromas of blackberry, pencil-lead, black olive, sous-bois and cedar. Very Pauillac and it just builds and builds in the glass. The palate displays a seductive entry, supple texture, very smooth and silky with blackberry, boysenberry and something quite sweet, dates or fig. Then towards the finish, it draws back and becomes more tannic and masculine, as if it say: “that’s enough”. An intriguing wine, quite mercurial in the glass.

The 2002 Lafite-Rothschild is surprisingly dark in colour. It also has a surprisingly concentrated bouquet with blackberry, sous-bois and brine. Hints of steaming cups of espresso percolate through with time. The palate is medium-bodied with a little chewiness on the entry. Quite briny and saline, a little rustic in terms of tannic profile and perhaps only on the finish does the limitations of the growing season show. Tasted at the château. -- Neal Martin