Lafite marks 2016 with hourglass etching

Bottles of Château Lafite’s 2016 vintage will feature a small hourglass etched onto the front of the bottle above the label.

The Pauillac-based first growth occasionally marks bottles from what it deems “exceptional” vintages with a symbol on the bottle.

Among the other vintages to carry a symbol are: the 2008 (with a Chinese symbol for ‘8’ in red), the 2005 (with a scale), 1999 (a sun and moon) and 1985 (a comet).

Baron Eric de Rothschild and his daughter Saskia, explained: “An hourglass has been etched onto our 2016 bottles symbolising a vintage that played hide and seek with us until the last moment. The kind you wait for, as the long summer days and the harvest go by, no one daring to breathe yet. January arrived: our doubts started to vanish. This year will be a good one.

“Today, do we still have to wait to be awed? Like a child who stares eagerly at an hourglass to announce the end of the game.

“Irony of fate, the symmetry between the two halves of an hourglass represent the opposition between earth and sky. But for this year, earth and sky joined hands. So let’s wait. 2016 deserves it.”