Château Lafite-Rothschild: Wines
The technical director since 2015 has been by Eric Kohler (pictured below). He oversees winemaking here, for many years with winemaker Christophe Congé, but he departed to take up a position on the Lorenzetti estates in 2022. Eric’s position also involves responsibility for overseeing operations at neighbouring estate Château Duhart-Milon, as well as some responsibility to Château Rieussec in Sauternes and Château L’Évangile in Pomerol.
Sticking with Lafite-Rothschild for the moment, after harvesting by hand and sorting by hand-and-eye over traditional tables, fermentation occurs in temperature-controlled vats, with fruit maceration lasting between 18 and 25 days. The chai is equipped to facilitate the fermentation of separate small plots, and in 2010 was augmented with new vat rooms; these are equipped with concrete tanks ranging from 50 to 125 hectolitres. Under Saskia de Rothschild, new cellars are currently under construction.
Once the alcoholic fermentation is finished the free-run and press wines are separated, and the former are translated into the second new room which contains stainless steel tanks ranging from 30 to 70-hectolitres in size, solely for the purpose of malolactic fermentation. To my knowledge there are no high-tech manipulations at Château Lafite-Rothschild, although Chevallier did reveal, as declared by Stephen Brook in Bordeaux, People, Power and Politics (Mitchell Beazley, 2001) that he had tried water removal by the sous vide method, essentially low-pressure and low-temperature evaporation, in the 1990 and 1991 vintages. But that was a long time ago now!
