Wine Advisor
Raymond Lafon 2009
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2009 Raymond-Lafon has a slightly smudged bouquet although it gains clarity with time, offering pineapple and peach skin, lanolin and honeysuckle aromas. The palate is well balanced with a fresh entry, slightly edge thanks to the acidity with good concentration and persistence towards the tropical-tinged finish. Good potential. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners’ 2009 Bordeaux tasting.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
There is a little SO2 on the nose at the moment. The palate is well balanced with a citric entry, touches of apricot and lime, tightly coiled towards the finish with the acidity slicing through the viscous honey fruit with a touch of Tropicana. Again, this is a very focused, tensile Sauternes with beguiling clarity.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2009 Raymond-Lafon exhibits a little more oak on the nose compared to its peers, which tends to obscure the fruit aromatics at the moment. The palate is much better with a crisp, taut entry and a superb seam of acidity that runs from start to finish. There is a sense of conservatism here, almost a predictable 2009 Sauternes, although it is very well crafted and offers great clarity and freshness on the tropical fruit-tinged finish. This is lovely, but give it a couple of years for the aromatics to settle. Drink 2015-2030.
Reviewed by: Lisa Perrotti-Brown
Pale gold colored, the 2009 Raymond-Lafon gives compelling marmalade, honey nut, pineapple upside down cake and burnt sugar notes with wafts of petrol and paraffin wax. Opulent with savory undertones, the palate delivers loads of citrus fruit sparks among the richness, with a racy backbone and long, fruity finish. While showing some evolution, this still has plenty of cellaring potential.
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
The 2009 Raymond-Lafon has a slightly smudged bouquet although it gains clarity with time, offering pineapple and peach skin, lanolin and honeysuckle aromas. The palate is well balanced with a fresh entry, slightly edge thanks to the acidity with good concentration and persistence towards the tropical-tinged finish. Good potential. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners’ 2009 Bordeaux tasting.
About the Producer
Château Raymond-Lafon is a wine estate situated in the sweet wine appellation of Sauternes, 50km (30 miles) southeast of the city of Bordeaux on the left bank of the Garonne River. The estate was founded by the eopnymous Raymond Lafon in 1850 and today boasts 16 hectares (40 acres) of vineyards within the Sauternes appellation. Louis Pontallier inherited the estate from Lafon (his uncle) at the beginning of the 20th Century. He continued his family's winemaking legacy here until 1952, when he sold the estate to the Bourdier family (Louis' grandson Paul Pontallier would go on to become the well-known manager of Médoc First Growth Château Margaux in the late Twentieth and early 21st Centuries). In 1972, Francine and Pierre Meslier acquired Château Raymond-Lafon and today their three children, Marie-Françoise, Charles-Henri and Jean-Pierre, have taken over the running of the estate. The property's vineyards lie in close proximity to those of Sauternes' renowned Château d'Yquem, which lies just to the southeast of Raymond-Lafon. Sémillon accounts for 80 percent of the grape varieties grown on the Raymond-Lafon estate, with Sauvignon Blanc making up the remainder. The vineyards are hand-harvested across three to ten passes (or "tries" in the vineyard) and the grapes ferment naturally for three to five weeks. Château Raymond-Lafon's wines age in hand-split, new oak barrels for three years and are racked on a three-month basis. This entire process produces approximately 20,00 bottles of wine a year that fall under the estate's three wine labels: Château Raymond-Lafon, Jeunes Pousses de Raymond-Lafon and Le Cadet.
