Lafleur 2025 (3L)

97-99+ Points, Jeb Dunnuck, JebDunnuck.com: "A powerful, inward, yet incredibly discrete and classy wine, the 2025 Château Lafleur reveals black raspberries, framboise, graphite, crushed stone, and floral notes on the nose. Based on 49% Merlot and 51% Bouchet, it's full-bodied on the palate, with a deep, rich, layered mouthfeel, remarkable length, and tons of polished tannins. It's an absolute dream of a wine, and I have no doubt this will check in with the top handful of wines in the vintage." 05/26

97 Points, Georgina Hindle, Decanter: "A quietly compelling wine from Lafleur this year. Creamy blue fruit aromas on the nose, quite open and friendly with some purple floral aspects and ripe but cool fruit, milk chocolate and some dried herbs. Soft and bouncy with both immediate grip and energy and intensity. Round and filling but delicately so - nothing overdone, there’s flesh and tannin presence but a certain lifted aspect where nothing is heavy. Lots of layers, fully textured but lattice-like. Still quite a dark style despite a juicy core with liquorice, flint, smoke, cedar and clove all in harmony. Really very cool and fresh, nothing hot or sunny about this wine. Serious, knitted, dark and finely tuned with good construction and grip while giving the impression that it’s not too muscular. Bravo. A yield of 35hl/ha. Now designated as a Vin de France as are all the other wines in the Lafleur range." 03/26

98-99 Points, James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com: "A cool and perfectly integrated wine with a vivid and poised nature, superb focus and precision. It’s so perfumed and dense yet weightless and polished. Endless finish. 51% cabernet franc and 49% merlot." 04/26

97-99 Points, Neal Martin, Vinous: "The 2025 Lafleur was picked early, from August 26 to 28 and from September 10 to 12 for the Cabernet Franc. Of course, this is the first year when the wine is classified as Vin de France after water was added to the soil, contravening Pomerol's AC rules. Discussing at length with Baptiste Guinaudeau, whilst I can see that it would essentially resuscitate the parched vine, the amounts are too little to affect the wine when considering the actual rainfall figures. For sure, it has a bashful bouquet at first and demands time to really open in the glass, 10 to 15 minutes. Only then does it reveal enticing scents of blackcurrant, bilberry, crushed stone and iris flower, all beautifully defined and very succinct—quintessential Lafleur. The palate is medium-bodied and framed by chiselled tannins that lend this Pomerol beguiling symmetry. What really marks this Lafleur is its tremendous persistence on the finish. It just goes on and on. This is a great Lafleur, irrespective of what it took to get there." 05/26

96-98 Points, William Kelley, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: "The 2025 Lafleur is generous and expressive, bursting with aromas of sweet cherries and raspberries mingled with notions of licorice, anise and violets. Full-bodied, dense and muscular, with a fleshy attack that segues into an ample, layered core of primary fruit, it's built around plenty of sweet, powdery tannin. This is a large-scaled Lafleur endowed with everything in abundance." 04/26

98 Points, Jane Anson, Inside Bordeaux: "High perfume, iris, peony, fragrant and finessed, a slow slow slow unroll of slate and crayon, saffron, grilled cumin, oyster shell, cassis pastille. Such a fabulous wine that has intense interest around it this year, after leaving the Pomerol AOC, and yet manages to shrug it off and simply concentrate on doing what it does best. 33% new oak. Harvest August 26 to September 12" 05/26

90-93 Points, Antonio Galloni, Vinous: "The 2025 Lafleur is a soft, open-knit wine with mid-weight structure and modest complexity by the standards of this property and the Grand Vin. Perhaps this will gain more volume and complexity with time in barrel. Ultimately, though, the 2025 comes across as diluted and light at this stage." 04/26