With Hart, Jake, Donald and Luis. At Pall Mall.

Is this is a case of “never meet your heroes”? I’ve long resigned myself to never knowing what Latour tastes like. It’s just what it is. When I discovered I could try a glass (coravined) at Pall Mall, I jumped on it.

In the glass, this was a deep dark ruby with a surprisingly significant amount of purple. Surprisingly barely any signs of age (aside from the tiny meniscus).

The magic of the wine was the balance and sheer complexity; it sounds exaggerated, but this was a wine that changed every few mins in the glass.

On the nose: fresh off the bottle, there was a surprisingly big waft of greenesss and pine. Very savory note, and deep blackberries. Very lean. As the wine breathed, the greenness faded to the background, and there was an emergence of cedar at the background. It also intensified. With more time, notes of earthy mushrooms. Super complex, but somehow in balance without any note being jarring.

On the palate: HIGH minerality, cedar, mid acidity, mid+ finish. With time, a distinct tobacco and woodiness on the exhale.

I had a tiny pour and never got to savor a well decanted Latour. This was a glimpse I suppose. Candidly, I don’t think the wine came close to wow-ing me the way great Montrose or Pavie did, BUT it’s the first (and perhaps last) I got to witness that degree of complexity, transformation, and finesse in a wine. I also wonder if this was a bottle off its peak – while coravined, the system really works best when there is more wine in the bottle. In this case, this was a fairly empty bottle by the time it got to us. I certainly didn’t get the intensity that reviews consistently mentioned