This is extremely pretty, certainly at a good moment for opening, with floral, raspberry and brambled fruit notes and a touch of liquorice. It’s a little more evolved than the Domaine de Chevalier 2007 that I also tasted this week, but is full of charm and displays a lovely elegance and balance. This is very clearly a vintage that should be considered for drinking right now, offering opportunities to open some of Bordeaux’s biggest names at 10 years old and enjoying really pleasurable wines - but they need to be drunk soon to capitalise on this. The blend is completed with 1% Petit Verdot.Decanter | 92 DECSolid core of fruit here for the vintage. Slightly better than I remember with hints of chocolate, sweet tobacco, and currants on the nose and palate that follow through to a full body and a velvety textured finish. Drink now.James Suckling | 92 JSTasted at BI Wine & Spirits’ 10-Years-On tasting, the 2007 Smith-Haut-Lafitte has a delightful bouquet of cedar-tinged red berry fruit mixed with cloves and Chinese five-spice, all well defined and quite Saint Julien-like in style. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin, hints of sandalwood and truffle infusing the decayed red fruit but with plenty of substance and freshness on the finish. I reckon after a decade, this Pessac-Leognan is à point and should be consumed now and over the next 8-10 years. Tasted February 2017.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 91 RPBright, medium ruby-red. Very expressive aromas of plum, tobacco, smoked meat and sexy oak. Broad, sweet and sexy, with a vein of acidity giving the wine clarity and a note of woodsmoke contributing early appeal. Finishes long, with mounting tannins. A noteworthy success for the year.Vinous Media | 91 VMA smooth, polished wine, with acidity, sweet fruit and a range of dusty tannins, with acidity. This is an accomplished, delicious wine that is developing fast, and seems only for medium-term aging. Wine Enthusiast | 90 WEThe 2007 Smith Haut-Lafitte Rouge is a bit too new oaky for its own good, and is not anywhere near as successful as the really lovely 2006. This is a very nice wine that is simply struggling a bit under its generous percentage of new wood. The nose offers up a fine blend of black cherries, cassis, tobacco smoke, herbs, lovely soil tones and plenty of vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is medium-full and shows a good core of fruit, with fine length and focus, but with its oak tannin just sticking out a bit uncovered on the finish. Perhaps there is enough stuffing here to eventually integrate the wood, but the wine would have been so good with half or a third as much new oak as it received in 2007. If it eventually integrates its wood a bit better, look for the wine to place towards the upper range of its score- if not, the lower range may be just a tad generous. Perhaps next time we could just donate a few dozen barrels to our less fortunate neighbors when the crop looks to be short? (Drink between 2014 - 2030)John Gilman | 84-97 JG
