Château Lafite Rothschild 1966

Château Lafite Rothschild 1966: A classic Pauillac, caught between legend and controversy

A bottle of Château Lafite Rothschild from 1966 is far more than just an old Bordeaux. It is a historical artefact from an era when the legendary First Growth from Pauillac was still run by Baron Élie de Rothschild – and from a decade considered to be a mixed bag in the château’s history. The 1966 vintage itself ranks among the great classics of the 20th century, and yet it is shrouded in a remarkable controversy that makes it one of the most fascinating wines of the post-war period.

The Château and the 1966 vintage

Château Lafite Rothschild looks back on one of the longest and most significant histories in Bordeaux. As early as the late 17th century, Jacques de Ségur reorganised the vineyard, and in the 18th century, Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur – known as ‘the wine of kings, the king of wines’ – to achieve the highest prestige, which extended as far as the salons of Versailles and across the English Channel. In 1855, Lafite was awarded Premier Cru Classé status as one of four estates. The château has been in the Rothschild family’s possession without interruption since 1868.

The 1966 vintage dates from a period when Baron Élie de Rothschild had been managing the estate since 1946 – an era which, in retrospect, is regarded as one of mixed quality. The 1960s and 1970s were characterised by less rigorous vineyard management and a winemaking style focused more on extraction than on finesse. Nevertheless, this decade produced, in the 1966 vintage, a wine that connoisseurs still count amongst the great Lafite vintages of the mid-century – alongside 1945, 1947, 1949 and 1959.

The weather conditions of 1966

The 1966 vintage got off to a far from promising start. The main rainfall began in late June and continued into July, but a hot start to August dried out the soil, and the weather gradually improved as autumn approached – almost perfect for the harvest. Flowering had taken place early, the summer was cool and relatively dry, but a very hot, sunny September ensured the grapes ripened to perfection. The harvest began under favourable conditions on 6 October – a late start, which was not unusual for the time and allowed the grapes extra time to ripen.

The result was a vintage described in Bordeaux as ‘exceptional for very classic and delicate wines’. The wines share a ‘truly classic, graceful and high-quality character that is so typical of Bordeaux wines’. The 1966 vintage is regarded as ‘irregular, but very good’ – with wines that captivate with their fresh acidity and remarkable longevity.

Winemaking and ageing

Wine-making in the 1960s differed fundamentally from today’s practices. The aim was to achieve maximum extraction – through punch-downs, raising the temperature at the end of fermentation, and ageing in barrels with a significant proportion of new oak. The vineyards were intensively managed, and yields were higher than they are today. Nevertheless, Lafite boasted exceptional soil: deep gravel resting on marl and a limestone subsoil, as well as vines with an average age of over 40 years.

The finished wine was aged for 18 months in French oak barrels and bottled with an alcohol content of around 12.5 per cent – a classic, restrained structure for a Pauillac of that era. The blend consisted predominantly of Cabernet Sauvignon, complemented by Merlot, Cabernet Franc and a small proportion of Petit Verdot.

Tasting notes and historical ratings

The rating history of the 1966 Château Lafite Rothschild is remarkably divided – and it is precisely this division that makes the wine so fascinating. The renowned wine critic Robert Parker awarded it just 84 points in his review for *The Wine Advocate*. His verdict was scathing: The wine displayed a “classic, grassy, herb-driven, Cabernet-dominated nose”, soft, “washed-out” aromas and hardly any body or length. It was “beginning to dry out” and had “consistently proved to be a major disappointment”.

Yet other critics paint a completely different picture. Falstaff awarded the wine 92 points in 2009 and described it as a medium ruby-garnet colour with orange highlights and a broad lightening at the rim. On the nose, there were “inviting notes of coffee, a delicate hint of milk caramel, sweet cherry fruit, nuances of orange zest, a hint of white truffles and a touch of cedarwood”. On the palate, there was “delicate red berry fruit with a hint of chocolate”, underpinned by the “fresh acidity typical of the vintage”, with nuances of dried plums and a touch of dark chocolate on the finish.

Jane Anson, one of Bordeaux’s leading critics, awarded 96 points and described the wine as “quite different in character to the 1966 Latour, with finer tannins, the focus more on wild strawberry, rosehip and white tea, with campfire smoke and lingering waves of crushed roses”. The wine captures “the quiet joy of a mature Lafite, with a delicious finish”.

This discrepancy can be partly explained by the varying quality of the bottles. The wine is known for significant bottle-to-bottle variation – some bottles already show clear signs of ageing, whilst others may remain on a high plateau for decades. Clive Coates described the 1966 Lafite as “very good, deep, full colour, much more powerful than the 1970” and attested to its remarkable longevity.

A wine straddling two eras

The 1966 Château Lafite Rothschild is a wine that both brings one era to a close and heralds a new one. It dates from the latter phase of the Élie de Rothschild era, before Eric de Rothschild took over in 1975 and launched a fundamental drive to improve quality. Lafite’s great vintages, it is said, ‘seem capable of outlasting the decades and of being immortal’ – and the 1966 is one of those wines that impressively substantiates this theory.

Anyone opening a well-preserved bottle of this wine today should give it time. It needs to breathe to reveal its full complexity – after a few hours in the glass, ‘it brims with vitality and vigour, whilst retaining its classic character’. The 1966 Lafite is not a loud wine, nor is it a showy Pauillac. It is, as one taster aptly put it, ‘an enchanting old Pauillac, no more and no less’.

Perhaps that is precisely where its fascination lies: it is a wine that does not reveal itself immediately, that polarises opinion and that – depending on the bottle – can show a completely different side. At a time when wines are becoming increasingly standardised and predictable, this unpredictability is a precious relic of a bygone era.