Dark blackcurrants with smokey tobacco, liquorice and slate. Cool straight away, fresh but so perfectly mouthfilling, not sweet like 2020, this is more cooling and fresh, blue fruit, black cherry, fleshy like fruit skin texture. Dark, I love the 2019s because they're more controlled and serious but so nuanced. To me this is how a great Pauillac can taste, serious, deep, classic Cabernet markers, lots of minerality in the flint and stoney aspects, strong tannins and a powerful, muscular structure with minty sides. An amazing Pauillac, this is really my style. Still so full of concentration and life, this will last forever.

Tobacco, liqourice and graphite all spread on toasted sandalwood, cedar, gunsmoke, cassis, black truffle, bilberry, crushed rocks and incense. The tannins here are very much slate and pumice stone, you feel the salt scrape, the length and persistance, and the oh-so-slow unrolling of pleasure. This has graceful depths and floral aromatics alongside Pauillac muscles and is a stellar Latour that needs another three or four years of cellaring to really soften.

Classic Pauillac darker currants, smoky tobacco, spicy wood, damp earth, and graphite all define the 2019 Chateau Latour, a ripe and approachable Latour that has more accessibility than many vintages while still possessing quintessential Latour character and depth. Blended from 92.5% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Merlot and aged 18 months in new French oak, it's medium to full-bodied with a round, layered mouthfeel, beautiful, almost velvety tannins, and a tremendous finish.

This Latour reminds me of the famous 1990 vintage that had refinement but strength. You need to spend time with this, and the nose evolves from black currants, violets, red licorice, mint and cassis. It slowly opens. Medium- to full-bodied with fine, velvety tannins that are textural and enticing. Extremely structured but seductive and graceful.

The 2019 Latour is every bit as impressive as it has always been. Silky and caressing on the palate, with exceptional balance, the 2019 has so much going on. Dark red fruit, new leather, spice and a kick of blood orange are some of the notes that build in the glass, but ultimately the 2019 impresses most with its textural finesse. There was a bit of rain during harvest, but that does not appear to have been much of an issue. The 2019 is a quintessentially modern Latour, a wine that deftly marries power with elegance.

The 2019 Latour is a profound wine in the making, and it will surely emerge as one of the most long-lived wines of the vintage, as well as one of the greatest. Unwinding in the glass with scents of rich cassis fruit, English walnuts, cigar wrapper, black truffle, loamy soil and violets, it's full-bodied, layered and muscular, with huge depth at the core, ripe tannins and lively acids, concluding with a long, seemingly interminable finish. Checking in at 14.1% alcohol, this prodigious Latour will require two decades to hit its stride, but it will be more than worth the wait.