97 Wine Spectator
Light brick with orange edge. This also exhibits a slight vegetal note initially, along with plenty of forest underbrush, growing more penetrating with a core of sweet cherry in its bouquet. A caressing red, full of silky, sweet cherry and berry flavors and smoke. A picture of finesse, superb balance and a long finish. This loses nothing after an hour in the glass.--La T?che non-blind vertical. Drink now through 2020. ?BS
97 Wine Spectator
Light brick with orange edge. This also exhibits a slight vegetal note initially, along with plenty of forest underbrush, growing more penetrating with a core of sweet cherry in its bouquet. A caressing red, full of silky, sweet cherry and berry flavors and smoke. A picture of finesse, superb balance and a long finish. This loses nothing after an hour in the glass.--La T?che non-blind vertical. Drink now through 2020. ?BS
90 Robert Parker
PRODUCTION: 2,354 cases. This wine is clearly in decline, but at one time it was a great La Tache, meriting a score of 96 or higher (the DRC Richebourg and Grands Echezeaux were also magnificent in 1966, but they too are heading toward their graves). The 1966 La Tache's color exhibits more depth than the 1970, with some medium ruby/garnet accompanied by considerable orange, rust, and amber at the edge. The nose remains 90+ material, offering intense, fragrant scents of saddle leather, sweet, jammy, red and black fruits, cedar, herbs (Michael Broadbent always calls this vegetal herbaceousness "beetroot"), and that game-like, smoked meat character. The flavors reveal more alcohol, glycerin, tannin, and acidity than fruit. Some tasters felt this wine was way over the hill, whereas others thought it to still be a complex, rich, enticing red
Burgundy, aromatically speaking, but quickly drying out on the palate.