France

Merlot

Cabernet Franc

Ch. Lafleur

Chateau Lafleur Pomerol

Bordeaux

Pomerol

Takes its time, holds itself back, then hugs the palate, keeps its grip on your taste buds. Liqourice, iris, tobacco, violet, cassis and spiced plum, with traces of white pepper, tomato leaf and a curl of gunsmoke, full of sculpted tannins. This will take a few years reach its peak, as it runs against the usual feel of the vintage. Harvest September 17 to October 2. No chaptilisation. 12 nights of frost risk in 2021 but they successfully battled it and it is fairly similar to a normal year in terms of yield.

Inside Bordeaux

A blend of 48% Merlot and 52% Cabernet Franc (Bouchet), the 2021 Lafleur has a deep garnet-purple color. After a swirl or two, the nose erupts with classic notes of fresh plums, boysenberries, and pencil shavings, leading to suggestions of tar, tilled soil, black truffles, and underbrush. Medium-bodied, the palate is built like a brick house, featuring a solid structure of firm, grainy tannins and great tension to support the muscular black fruits, finishing long and earthy.

by Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW

Deep garnet-purple colored. Needs a lot of shaking to unlock notes of fresh red cherries, black raspberries, and blackberries, opening out to hints of lilac, Sichuan pepper, underbrush, and fertile loam. The medium-bodied palate delivers a firm frame of grainy tannins and just enough freshness to support the tightly knit red and black berry layers, finishing on a lingering fragrant earth note.

Iris and violet flowers greet you on the opening beats, and it's a little more open at this early stage than is sometimes the case with this most profound of wines. Combines deep and creamy cassis and blueberry fruits with pumice-scraping tannins, vibrant and humming through the palate. There are, as ever, hidden depths here that show through the cocoa bean and espresso as it opens up, and this still needs a good 8 to 10 years before reaching its peak. 25% new oak for ageing.

Creamy blackberry, squid ink, cocoa bean, liquorice, crushed rose petals, intense, touch of soy, broth, clear salinity and grip. This is a well that you can fall into, could almost be io the Left Bank here because there is a sombre edge to it but as it opens, it shows its more joyful side, and this is a wonderful wine. As I said for the En Primeur sample, 'it provides a welcome sense of continuity in a vintage where the byword is excess'. 25% new oak for ageing, with the other 75% in barrels that were used at 9 months old after ageing the white wines. Harvest 7 and 17 September. Jean-Baptiste Guinaudeau owner and winemaker, along with an exceptionally invested team, harvest September 3 to 17.

The 2020 Lafleur is a blend of 50% Merlot and 50% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-purple in color, it needs lots and lots of patient swirling to coax out a slowly emerging perfume of kirsch, wild blueberries, juicy black plums, and lilacs, followed by wafts of tar, crushed rocks, Sichuan pepper, and wood smoke. The full-bodied black, blue, and red berry flavors grow in the mouth, allowing earth and mineral nuances to emerge, textured by velvety tannins and seamless freshness, finishing with epically long-lasting stone and licorice-laced flavors. This will need at least 10-15 years in bottle to reveal its cards, and personally I think it's holding onto a full house.

Rich and powerful on the nose, with layer upon layer of black and brambly fruits, fresh tobacco leaf. Really one to drink in, raspberry, cherry, blackberry, pencil lead, tobacco, flint, crushed earth, cigar box, inky and powerful and extremely confident. It has so much of the freshness and power of the 2016, with hints of smoked caramel that point to the generosity that is contained within the layers, set against the severity of slate minerality and tight tannins. Likely to shut down pretty severely from now, needs to be given a good 10 years.

Lafleur 2018 is deep garnet purple in color. It is a little broody to begin, giving way to notes of sauteed herbs, damp soil, and truffles, over a core of baked plums, blackberry preserves, and cedar, with a waft of olives. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is firm and grainy, quite muscular, locked up tight, with a long and earthy finish. It needs time! 

Stunning aromatic intensity curling out of the glass, violets and peonies, just a gorgeous wine that is hard to resist even at only eight years old, with plenty of time ahead before it fully softens. Luscious opening, then flooded with liqourice, black chocolate, cocoa beans, sage, linear, with contained power that grips on to the palate. 20% new oak, Guinaudeau family owners.

Deep garnet-brick in color, the 2014 Lafleur needs a lot of swirling to coax out subtle scents of forest floor, menthol, and baked cherries, with emerging suggestions of iron ore, incense, and potpourri. The medium to full-bodied palate is packed with seductive red and black berry preserves layers, framed by firm, rounded tannins and bags of freshness, finishing long and minerally.

Medium garnet in color, the 2013 Lafleur starts off quite herbal, with notions of rosemary and wild sage giving way to a core of raspberry coulis and kirsch, plus hints of crushed rocks, lavender, and tobacco leaf. The medium-bodied palate delivers a good core of fruit with an herbal undercurrent and firm, chewy tannins, finishing savory.

The 2012 Lafleur is medium to deep garnet colored. It features profound scents of dried cherries, prunes, and wild thyme plus underlying suggestions of camphor, iron ore, and cumin seed. The medium to full-bodied palate is rich and multi-layered, supported by rounded tannins and just enough freshness, finishing with an herbal lift.

Delivers Lafleur electricity, if still a little serious at almost 20 years old. This remains a Cabernet Franc dominant vintage in its feel and aromatics, if not in blend, and the austerity of the early years has not entirely disappeared. Give it a few moments to unwind and show those seductive brushed tannins that cushion grilled black fruits, slate, graphite, smoked earth, cumin, black pepper, steel, violets and roses. Jacques Guinaudeau owner and winemaker, and this was still just four vintages since he had become sole owner, following 15 years renting from his aunts (first both, then one) the Robin sisters. Harvest October 8 to 14, after a challenging vintage that needed the attention to detail that Lafleur always delivers.

I tried to restrain myself, sipping this rare and stunning wine slowly but surely, but it was almost impossible not to down it in one, it was just so good. Supple and finely-boned tannins, a ton of white truffle and tobacco notes, gentle smoked earth, tannins still holding on to the now fully softened red fruits. Shared by a generous friend at 67 Pall Mall - and even luckier, I was simply walking past their table with lucky timing! Jacques Guinaudeau had arrived at the estate just two years earlier, in 1984, leasing the vines from his aunt Marie Robin. It took decades to come around, but right now it is singing.

Category	Red wine
Vinmonopolet no.
Producer	Ch. Lafleur
Vintages	2021
Country	France, Bordeaux, Pomerol
Bottle	75 cl

Alcohol	14 %
Acid	%
Sugar	< 3 g/l

Packaging	Glass
Cork type
Selection	Spesialutvalg
Wholesaler	Lars Søreide AS
Carrier	Lars Søreide AS