2022 Lafon Rochet
Buying options
Tasting notes
Smooth and sleek, lovely silky fruitiness combined with quite fleshy, but powdery and juicy tannins giving a really delicate, almost light expression that has mineral markers and lots of life. Nice energy and unfussiness. Crisp and sharp but with depth too. Succulent and mouthwatering, clean and pure, with bite and lingering liquorice and minerality.
Critic scores
Average Score
William Kelley, Wine Advocate
James Suckling
More reviews and scores
The 2022 Lafon-Rochet has a well-defined bouquet with pure blackberry and blueberry fruit, the oak better integrated here than the disappointing Haut-Marbuzet. The palate is medium-bodied with rounded tannins, a keen line of acidity, black pepper and seaweed-tinged black fruit, with a nicely composed, quite persistent finish. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.
The 2022 Lafon-Rochet is a rich, ripe, somewhat Napa-styled Saint-Estèphe, offering up aromas of sweet jammy berries, fig preserve, licorice and creamy new oak, followed by a full-bodied, soft and fat palate. Readers who gravitate toward this style of wine will love it.
Rocking notes of currants, leafy tobacco, cassis, graphite, and crushed stone nuances all emerge from the 2022 Château Lafon-Rochet, a seriously good, concentrated, powerful expression from this château that has beautiful purity, ripe, building, yet substantial tannins, and a great finish. It's going to need some time, but this is brilliant.
About the producer
Instantly recognisable for its sunshine-yellow château and labels, Ch. Lafon-Rochet is a Fourth Growth Saint-Estèphe estate renowned for its age-worthy wines. Quality at the property has increased significantly over the last two decades and, with new owners from 2021, this will only continue.