Charles Chevallier and his team at Chateau Lafite-Rothschild have come up with the goods again, though that hardly counts as news these days. Hot on the heels of the perfect 2009 is a grand vin of extraordinary intensity in 2010. It’s not a better wine than 2009 but it is different. Maybe it doesn’t quite have the elegance and subtlety of the previous year but it is more classic, with more ‘volume’ as they put it at Lafite. It certainly feels like it has more power and concentration. It is a sublime and quite amazing wine, yet still with freshness and somehow ‘only’ 13.5 in alcohol. What terrific terrior they have. Carruades de Lafite too is a marvel in 2010, a ‘second’ wine that seems to have upped its game exponentially in the past few vintages.

Well 2005 Lafite does have a contender. Judging wines at such a young age – five months since the last day of harvest on 8^thOctober – is usually a tricky affair with a fair bit of filling in the gaps, but there is absolutely no doubt that Lafite has produced something truly extraordinary in 2009. Charles Chevallier was already describing the vintage as ‘truly great’ before Christmas, but tasting the wine is something else. It’s a blend of 82.5% Cabernet, 17% Merlot and 0.5% Petit Verdot and I imagine it’s around the 13.5 degree mark, if not more, yet the quality of the fruit and the ripeness of the tannins, alongside perfectly judged extraction and winemaking, mark this Lafite as magical.

In the run up to Christmas The Wine Society organised a tasting in London tutored by Charles Chevallier of Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. There was a good spread of vintages from the Chateau – 2005, 2004, 2002, 2001, 1999, 1997, 1996, 1995 and 1990 and the event was well organised. Charles Chevallier was tantalising about the much heralded 2009 vintage – which he described it as ‘a very great vintage’ in the making. So I’m sorry if you spent all your money on 2005 – you had better be prepared to fork out again once the 2009 wine is relased to the market in a couple of months time. And what will asking price be? Well a case of the 2005 currently trades for around £8000-£9000 [$12,000-$14000]. My bet is it won’t be much short of that after it hits the market. The 2005 itself at the tasting, did however, prove every bit as good as people have said it is, so it is difficult to imagine that wine being easily trumped by 2009 however good it is.