Famously long-lived first growth in the Médoc region of Bordeaux. The originally square tower from which the Château takes its name was one of a defensive line against ocean-going pirates. Vines were already planted here in the late 14th century and at least a quarter of the land was vineyard by 1600. At the end of the 17th century, a number of smallholdings were accumulated into one ownership under the de Mullet family. The New French Clarets they produced made their first publicized appearances in auctions in London coffee houses early in the 18th century. Owned from 1677 by the Clauzel family, it passed by marriage to the powerful Ségurs, who also owned Lafite, Mouton, and Calon-Ségur. On the death in 1755 of the Marquis Nicolas-Alexandre de Ségur, 'Le Prince des Vignes', his properties passed to his four daughters, three of whom in 1760 acquired Latour. Their male descendants owned the Château, which in 1842 became a private company, until its purchase by the British Pearson family in 1963, with 25 per cent acquired by Harveys of Bristol, and a diminishing minority remaining in the hands of the French families. The property was greatly improved, with stainless steel tanks controversially installed as fermentation vessels in time for the 1964 vintage, partly on the advice of director Harry Waugh. In 1989, the estate was sold to multinational corporation Allied-Lyons, already owners of Harveys, for the equivalent of £110 million. In 1993, Allied-Lyons sold their 94 per cent share of the property to French businessman François Pinault (who acquired the London auction house of Christie's in 1998), when Latour was valued at £86 million.

The estate of 77 ha of vineyard (11 ha were acquired in 2005) consists of 75 per cent Cabernet Sauvignon vines, 24 per cent Merlot (increased from 15 per cent in the 1980s), and a very small amount of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, with an average annual production of 30,000 cases of the three wines made there. In 1966 was first produced a second wine, Les Forts de Latour, made from the produce of young vines and from three plots on the other side of the St-Julien–Pauillac road. A third wine is also bottled and sold as Pauillac. Latour's wines generally require much longer to develop than those of the other first growths, and they often have greater longevity. Latour is also known for its ability to produce good wines in lesser vintages.

It also possesses better archives, back to the 14th century, than any other wine estate in Bordeaux and so has spawned an unusual and useful array of monographs.