Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte
With a distinctive blue shield on the label, the wines of Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte always had a tendency to stand out in a crowd of bottles. I still remember the first time I came across one such bottle, looking quite lonesome in a branch of Scatchard’s, an old Liverpool wine merchant. It was from a good vintage for the region, but was rather pricy, and in addition the estate at that time was reputedly passing through a period of under-performance. When looking for quality in Pessac-Léognan, Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte was one name that came low down on anyone’s list, after more popular and more exalted estates such as Château Pape-Clément, Domaine de Chevalier, Château Haut-Bailly and, of course, the complex of Clarence Dillon properties, these days reduced to principally Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion.
Today, to hold such a view would be outdated. Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte is a prime example of the wave of reinvestment and revitalisation that Bordeaux has seen in the latter years of the 20th and early years of the 21st centuries. In this case, the whirlwind duo of Daniel and Florence Cathiard have not only pulled this estate from the mire, but have somehow managed to catapult it to the very forefront of the Pessac-Léognan appellation, if not to the front of all Bordeaux. Tastings of recent vintages, both white and red, have demonstrated that there are now excellent wines produced here. Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte is no longer a bottle one glibly skips over during the hunt for the best Bordeaux has to offer.
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