The tower on the label is the Saint-Lambert dovecote, built in the seventeenth century on the site of a fortified tower that once watched the Gironde estuary. The vineyard behind it — the Enclos, the block of vines nearest the river — is one of the most consistently reliable pieces of ground in the whole of Bordeaux, and it is Latour's reputation in poor years, not good ones, that has always set it apart.
That matters here. 1973 was a huge, rain-swollen harvest that produced pale, quick-maturing clarets almost everywhere in the Médoc. Latour, then under British ownership with Jean-Paul Gardère running the estate day to day, made one of the more respectable wines of the year: slight by its own standards, but recognisably first growth in shape.
Half a century on this is fully mature and will not improve. It is a first growth, from one specific year — which is generally what is being asked of it.
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Producer: Château Latour
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Vintage: 1973
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Appellation: Pauillac AOC
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Format: 75cl
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Region: Bordeaux, France
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Style: Red
Where it is likely to be now. Latour's fruit outlasts most and the 1973 was one of the better wines of that year, but this will now be slight and fully mature: pleasant if the cork has held, and never something we would guarantee.
Who it suits. For a fifty-third birthday where the name has to be one everybody at the table recognises — Latour is a first growth in any company.
Condition. Recorded in good order, with label, capsule and fill all as they should be for a wine of this age.
Provenance. Bought to order from a professional European merchant. We check fill, label and capsule when the bottle reaches us and photograph it before it ships.
Delivered in 7 to 10 working days, tracked. Transit cover can be added at checkout.
Sold as a collectible item, as seen. No guarantee is given on drinkability.
