Deep garnet colored, the 2009 Latour is unashamedly youthful with bold blackcurrants, black cherries and warm plums notes plus nuances of cedar chest, aniseed, beef drippings, truffles and tapenade with a waft of tilled black soil. Full, concentrated and powerful in the mouth, it has a rock-solid frame of super ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic freshness, finishing very long and wonderfully minerally. Just a baby?this needs time!

The 2009 Latour is endowed with a simply magnificent nose with intense blackberry and cassis fruit laced with minerals and graphite, extremely focused to the point of overwhelming the sense. Wow. The palate is medium-bodied with filigree tannin, multilayered black fruit infused with crushed stone and a hint of white pepper, though it clams up towards the finish as if to say, not yet. Outstanding. This is Latour firing on all cylinders. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners' 2009 Bordeaux tasting.