Lowest Price This item is being kept at a professional bonded warehouse. No duty or VAT tax has been paid on this item and none will be if you decide to keep or transfer it to another bonded warehouse.
Taxes will only be paid once the item leaves a bonded facility. For example, for home delivery.
VAT & Duty PaidThis item is being kept in professional storage but VAT & Duty has already been paid which is not refundable. If you want home delivery for this item to the same country in which the taxes have been paid, you will not be required to pay further tax on this item.
Taxes may need to be paid in addition if you are transferring it to another country for local home delivery where tax has not already been paid.
The 2003 Lafite Rothschild comes as close to perfection as any of the great Lafites made over the past three decades (1982, 1986, 1996, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009 and 2010). This sensational effort came in at 12.7% natural alcohol, it is made in the style of one of this estate’s great classics, the 1959. Composed of 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, it exhibits a dense ruby/purple color to the rim along with a luxurious bouquet of cedarwood, lead pencil shaving, white chocolate, cocoa and cassis. Fat, rich, opulent and full-bodied with low acidity and stunning seductiveness and complexity, this noble wine possesses a bountiful, generous, heady style. It is just coming into its plateau of maturity where it should hold for 20-25 years. This is one of the candidates for the wine of the vintage – make no mistake about that.
Drinking Window: 2014 - 2039
Reviewer Name: Robert M. Parker, Jr.
Review Date: 28th August 2014
Spicy and rich, with a tobacco and berry character on the nose and palate I love the nose. Full bodied, with soft velvety tannins that give you so much. This goes on and on. Sexy and exciting right now, but leave this for five or six years.
Drinking Window: 2010 - 2030
Review Date: 14th March 2011
This is a splendid wine. Yes, it is more powerful than the usual aristocratic Lafites, but it still manages to retain a special air of great elegance and presence. The fruits are black, the tannins immensely powerful, the flavors are of black figs, dates, cocoa. At the end, there is a vibrant acidity that shows through, which promises a great life for this great wine. Imported by Diageo Chateau & Estates.
Drinking Window: 2010 - 2050
Review Date: 1st May 2006
The 2003 Lafite-Rothschild famously shrugged off the merciless heat of that infamous summer when the temperature at the estate nudge 42° Celsius. It has a lovely bouquet of black plum, pressed iris, a touch of glycerin and (for Lafite) exotic scents of blood orange. The palate is powerful and intense as you would expect. There is great depth and volume with glossy black fruit laced with orange zest, smoke and melted tar. You can almost feel the summer in this Lafite-Rothschild but unlike many of its peers, it has requisite acidity to maintain freshness and avoid cloyingness on the finish. Whilst not my pick of modern-day Lafites, I have to doff my cap because it was and still is, one of the finest Left Banks of the vintage. Tasted at the Lafite-Rothschild 150th anniversary dinner at the estate.
Drinking Window: 2020 - 2050
Reviewer Name: Neal Martin
Review Date: 1st July 2018
Subtle, complex aromas of berries, licorice and currants. Full-bodied, with well-integrated tannins and a long finish. Very well-integrated wine. Lovely stuff. Wonderful length and finesse.
New oak introduces this wine, giving a spicy, layered, modernist impression. The texture in the middle is more luscious than young Lafite usually would be, but the tannin in the end has the vineyard's aristocratic austerity. With several days of air, the strength of the wine's black fruit emerges from behind the blunt power of the tannin. Less joyous than the 2005 Lafite; more a fascinating intellectual pursuit for now. It should become more accessible with a decade or more in bottle.
Drinking Window: 2012 - 2026
Review Date: 1st October 2006
(-) Full red-ruby color. Captivating aromas of cassis, cherry, tobacco, mocha, coffee and leather, with a complicating element of dried oregano and thyme. At once silky and penetrating in the mouth, with very firm acids for the vintage giving shape and thrust to the dense flavors of currant, tobacco and iodine. Finishes with broad, dusty tannins and superb persistence. Although this appears to be built for two or three decades of life in bottle, I miss the primary fruit character and the mineral and floral high notes of the more classic vintages of this wine.
Drinking Window: 2012 - 2026
Review Date: 1st May 2006
