2017 Le Petit Haut Lafitte

Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2017 Le Petit Haut Lafitte delivers a slightly broody nose of tar, new leather and truffles over an emerging core of warm plums, mulberries and boysenberries with a touch of anise. Medium-bodied, the palate offers loads of black cherries and savory hints with a plush frame and earthy finish.

More serious, the 2017 Le Petit Haut Lafitte is a more Cabernet Sauvignon-dominated effort (60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot). It’s made to be a more ageworthy, structured wine, and it succeeds beautifully in the vintage, offering classic Smith Haut Lafitte-like notes of cassis, unsmoked tobacco, violets, and earthiness. Medium to full-bodied and nicely textured, it has the straight, focused style of the vintage and will benefit from 3-4 years of bottle age and keep for over a decade.

The 2017 Le Petit Haut Lafitte is aged in 20% new oak. It has a fresh, slightly minty bouquet with tightly wound blackberry and raspberry notes, a touch of iris rather than violet. The palate is medium-bodied with a light grip on the entry. Blackberry infused with graphite runs from start to finish of this quite linear and “correct” Pessac-Léognan, leading to a chalky-textured, Pauillac-inspired finish that is actually more closed in the later tasting I conducted during my three weeks in Bordeaux. This will need two or three years in bottle but it has the substance to give a decade of drinking pleasure.