This vintage featured a cold winter and cool weather at flowering, followed by a dry summer with a hot July and warm days and cool nights in August and September. The season delivered a wine with an inky dark colour and bright aromas of blackcurrant and spice with a distinctive floral edge. The texture is lively and crisp, with plenty of freshness, firm tannins, and impressive length. This wine will be best after another 10 years in bottle and will easily last 50 years beyond that. This superb, vibrant wine is a blend of 87% Cabernet Sauvignon and 13% Merlot with no Cabernet Franc or Petit Verdot in the grand vin.

Perfectly captures the Lafite mix of delivering concentration wrapped up with delicacy and slow-build construction, with the tannins showing a scraping, chalky minerality at first and then widening out through the mid palate to reveal a creamier edge. Cut herbs, liquorice, fennel, cassis, bilberry, loganberry, cigar box, incense. More closed than the 2009, as you would expect, but this is right up there with the greatest wines of the vintage, and one that you will be able to pick out of a cellar in 30 years time without the slightest worry. Brilliant. 100% new oak for ageing, from their own DBR Lafite cooperage. And once again, having this wine among the rest of the lineup during a comparative tasting is so instructive in terms of understanding the extra depths that you get from Lafite.

Deep garnet in color, the 2010 Lafite Rothschild is a little mute on the nose at this stage, opening to reveal warm blackcurrants, baked plums and boysenberry scents with hints of chocolate mint, violets, cedar chest and pencil lead. Full-bodied, rich and densely packed with perfumed black fruit layers, it has a rock-solid backbone of fantastically ripe, grainy tannins and beautiful freshness, finishing very long and minerally. Still very youthful!- LPB

Almost black in color, this stunning wine is gorgeous, rich and dense. It’s grand and powerful, with a strong sense of its own importance. The beautiful tannins and the fragrant black currant fruits are palpable. It’s a great wine, with huge potential.

This is shy and not giving its all at the moment. Yet it is full and intense with a tightly intertwined tannic and fruit structure. Ethereal blackberry, currant, cedar, and nutty flavors. Dried flowers too. Cedar jewel box smell comes out with time. Great finish. So, so long and harmonious. Try in 2018.

The potential is here. The nose is strong complex and haunting. But on the palate, the dusty tannins are front and center, keeping most of what the wine has in check. Give it 10-15 more years and this could blossom. Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/search-wine-tasting-notes/?szSearch=2010+Lafite

The Lafite-Rothschild 2010 has a more exotic but no less compelling bouquet compared to its peers, with scents of macerated red cherries, creme de cassis, crushed violets and cedar wood. It has wonderful definition and generosity, though blind I was erring towards Mouton rather than Lafite! The palate is medium-bodied with a sensual, caressing entry that just flows across the mouth. There is good extraction here, not over-extraction with a vivacious finish: white pepper sprinkled over red and black fruit with amazing tension. It is extraordinarily long and persistent in the mouth.

Rather tight, with an alluring whiff of cocoa that lures you in before disappearing into the core of steeped plum, roasted fig and blackberry coulis notes. Sandalwood, black tea and loam elements fill in on the long and expansive finish. This seems to be lying in wait for what could be a very long time in the cellar before unfurling fully. Best from 2018 through 2045. – JM

87.2% cabernet sauvignon and 12.8% merlot. The harvest at Lafite began on September 24th with the merlot and finished October 13th with the cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot. 13.48% alcohol. This showcases a spicy peppery nose with notes of raspberry chocolate and black tea. On the precise palate it is very pure and elegant. The chalky minerality is accented by pure cabernet flavors and framed by well-integrated French oak. Moderately complex and medium to full bodied but I wish this had a longer finish.