2000 Château Lascombes

[AlexR]

A recent thread on BWE asked people what they thought were the most overrated great growths. Several people suggested Château Lascombes. This prompted me, in the interest of science, to look at my cellar book to see if I had any. As it so happens, I did. And a bottle of 2000 Lascombes seemed just the ticket.

Lascombes is a second growth Margaux that has had many ups and downs, shrinking to just over 20 hectares in the 1950s before it was resuscitated by Alexis Lichine and a group of American investors. It want from them to Bass Charington, the English brewers, then back to an American pension fund before its acquisition in 2011 by MACSF, a French insurance company specialised in medical employees.

Lacombes now stands at 120 hectares, producing some 300,000 bottles a year, making this one of the largest estates in the Médoc, accounting for 12% of the entire Margaux appellation spread over five communes. Unlike its neighbors, Lascombes has a much larger proportion of Merlot (50%). In her book “Inside Bordeaux”, Jane Anson downgrades Lascombes to third growths status. Without being overly critical, I think that is a fair evaluation, as borne out by the wine I tasted. However, it has to be said that this wine was made before either consultant Michel Rolland or the present manager, Dominique Befve took over. Both of them started in 2001.

In all objectivity, 2000 Lascombes, even though from a very good vintage, did not achieve second growth status. The color was quite deep, with bricking pretty much appropriate for a 22 year old wine. The nose was the best part of this wine. However, its combination of graphite, blackcurrant, and humus components was reminiscent of more northerly appellations. The wine seemed still fresh on the palate, but rather dilute, going into grippy granular tannin. It suffered from a basic imbalance and was a little raisiny. The negative factor here was the marked acidity (almost sourness) and bitterness making this more acceptable with food than on its own. The aftertaste showed some candied black fruit.
On the whole, despite the tannic finish, I felt this wine would have been better a few years ago.

I have visited Lascombes several times with Izak Litwar in recent years and the vintages I tasted with him seem seemed much improved. I will certainly be paying closer attention to Lascombes in the future. I also see that I have a bottle of 2005 and must think about opening it soon.

Best regards,
Alex R.

[JCNorthway]

Nice review, Alex. I feel like I know just what the wine is like.

[AKR]

I would drink that 2005 sooner rather than later....

[JimHow]

I'm still getting the splinters out of my mouth from that 2004 Lascombes we drank at the Ritz in NYC with the Brothers Blanquito, what, it must have been about 15 years ago now....

[greatbxfreak]

In reply to Alex' post I have similar TNs of 2001 vintage.

I'll admit that I rather disagree with several posters here about Lascombes.

Yes, it tastes a bit light in problem vintages, but it's excellent in superb vintages like 2010, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Imho, Lascombes is an elegant wine with a lot of finesse and style. It's a wine from Margaux, for heaven's sake!

I've some bottles of 2005 and will retaste this vintage soon.

[Claudius2]

Guys
With 120 hectares (around 305 acres) I wonder if all of the real estate is reasonably capable of second growth quality. Maybe in top vintages it can work, but with several plots of land and quite a lot of it, maybe there is too much material to work with?

The older versions of Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Guide repeatedly said poor selection and I attention to detail (in vineyard and chais) were the reasons for what he calls the chequered past of Lascombes.

I have not tried any recent vintages of this wine though had quite a few from 1982 to 2004 and never thought much of them. As mentioned by others the 2004 was an under achiever but I have to say that so far, I’ve not tried any vintage of Lascombes that was even remotely second growth quality. I rated it a fifth growth in the BWE classification last year.

Izak
You and Stefan and possibly a few others are much closer to the action than I am here so I will make some effort to try them. We will be in France in Oct/Nov and I will allot some time to visit Bordeaux.

[Musigny 151]

I remember vividly tasting the Lascombes 2000 en primeur. It was at the height of Parker’s influence in Bordeaux, and the wines were seriously extracted with a ton of new oak. What made Lascombes 2000 particularly unpleasant for my palate was the raisiny quality of the wine from overripe grapes. It came across as fat, alcoholic and sweet. It got my lowest score at the Margaux/St. Julien tasting, and my notes compared it to a second rate California wine.

I tasted it blind fifteen years later. Not much had changed; I did not find the complexity Ian had, just a softened version, and still oaky and sugary. So although my experience with recent Lascombes is zero, so it may have improved, I have yet to taste a wine that is close to second growth quality or even third.

[stefan]

I don't recall drinking any Lascombes from the last millennium that deserved higher than a fifth growth ranking.