|
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte - Fabien Teitgen - Florence Cathiard
Harvest
Chronicles at
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte
-
Pessac-Leognan-Graves
At Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte,
picking got off to a gentle start with the white wine grapes on September 8th 2004. We waited twelve days for a plot of old
Sauvignon blanc vines to reach full ripeness. These were picked between September 20th and the 27th.
The excellent degree of ripeness in the skins at
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte was accompanied by good
acidity.
This resulted in aromatic,
rich, concentrated, well-balanced must.
Fermentation
took place normally at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte and the vats that finished first displayed fine
balance (13.5% and 4-4.5 total
acidity) with beautiful
texture and power. The red wine grape
harvest
at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte stared relatively late, on September 27th, in the young
Merlot vines. Drastic crop reduction (green harvesting) helped to aerate the grape bunches, conducive to healthy
ripe fruit.
A
taste test of
Cabernet
Franc and
Petit Verdot leads us to believe
at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte that we can start picking in the middle of next week. As for
Cabernet
Sauvignon, it is to early to tell.
Alcoholic fermentation in the first vats of
Merlot is drawing to a close, enabling us to make a preliminary appraisal of the new
vintage:
-
fermentation is taking place normally
- the
alcoholic degree is fairly high ( average 13% by volume)
- the colour is very
deep
- the fermenting
must
has very interesting red fruit (raspberry and blackcurrant) and black fruit (blackberry)
aromas.
At
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte,
we picked the Merlot
grapes under good conditions between September 27th and October 7th, continuing immediately afterwards with the
Petit
Verdot, which were perfectly
ripe. We then waited a few days before harvesting the
Cabernet Franc and starting on the
Cabernet
Sauvignon. Then, at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte we had to play hide-and-seek with the weather, rushing out to finish picking the
Cabernet Sauvignon during the sunny spells between showers from October 11th to 15th and managing to finish before the heavy rains at the weekend. Most vats of
Merlot are now finishing
fermentation and the first vats have already been run off. They have all the fruitiness of the grapes, as well as good
body and
structure. At Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte
on tasting, the wines are well balanced with quite high
acidity (malolactic fermentation has not yet started). The
Cabernet Franc and
Cabernet Sauvignon have started fermenting nicely.
The white wines at Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte have not yet completely finished fermenting and we are very pleased with the way it is going. The
balance,
structure, and
body of the whites match up to the high hopes we have for this
vintage. For the moment at
Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte, the whites are relatively closed in, but they still show excellent potential.
Fabien Teitgen, Technical Director , Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte
http://www.smith-haut-lafitte.com/fr/sommaire.html
|
