Château Lafleur, Pomerol, 2024

Name: Château Lafleur, Pomerol
Brand: Château Lafleur
Price: 1765 GBP

Available Vintages

all 1999 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008 2010 2011 2012 2014 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

justerini & brooks tasting note

Baptiste described the 2024 growing season as a “revelation”. “You can’t fight climate change, but you can play with the advantages it gives you”. Early pruning on February 17th and 18th got the vines prepared and off to a fast start. Omri likens the 2024 to the “1999 but with more capacity. It’s an intense wine, but not overpowering”. We concur. As we have come to expect, Lafleur transcends the vintage with a wine of depth and intrigue coupled with refinement and charm. A brooding nose promises something beyond the vintage's typical profile, revealing a super floral character of violets and iris mingled with dark fruits of mulberries, cassis, and red cherries, then sandalwood, forest floor, and leaf tea, alongside touches of pencil shavings. The palate offers layers of vibrant, ripe blackcurrants, blackberries, dark cherry, and plum, supported by an earthy minerality reminiscent of fine gravel. Deeply mineral fruit carries a sweet exotic spice, crème de mûre, black cherries, and goji berry, with a crushed rock sensation adding nerve and resonance. The sophisticated finish is precise and cerebral, offering salinity and long, persistent flavours of fragrant cranberries, stones, blood orange, fallen leaves, and a subtle leather note. A glorious, vertical wine, profound in its depth and complexity, yet weightless and refreshing. Omri believes it will have the charms to be consumed soon after bottling and has the usual Lafleur aging capacity.

critic reviews

95-97/100Lisa Perrotti-Brown,The Wine Independent

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.

DRINKING WINDOW 2027 - 2047

date of review 05/2025

95-97/100Neal Martin,Vinous

The 2024 Lafleur was picked September 20 to September 30. It has a discrete bouquet which is unusual for Lafleur at this stage, very harmonious with a mixture of blackcurrant and graphite scents, erring towards Left Bank in style as this Pomerol is wont to do. The palate is medium-bodied with a dash of white pepper on the entry. There is an entrancing symmetry to this Lafleur, and it feels very composed and poised towards the finish, which the Bouchet [Cabernet Franc] has shaped. This is a multi-faceted Lafleur, which is some achievement in this growing season. It will be fascinating to watch evolve in bottle.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2060

date of review 05/2025

96/100Jane Anson,Inside Bordeaux

Takes its time in the glass to unroll, as true in 2024 as in any other vintage of Lafleur. Dark fruit character, leafy cassis bud alongside blackcurrant, gunsmoke, poppy seeds, black tea, crayon, even the beginnings of white truffle. Remarkable how different the structure, fruit quality and tannins here are to many others in the vintage - if you are planning to secure any of the big names, this should be on your shortlist. Builds in intensity in the glass, certainly you don't need to worry if you are a collector and don't want to miss a vintage. Harvest 20 to 30 September. They did no green harvesting here, and with the terroir plus careful work in the vineyard, the yields are in mid to high 30s. Lafleur team working under Julie and Baptiste Guinaudeau. 25% new oak.

DRINKING WINDOW 2032 - 2046

date of review 04/2025

93-95/100Yohan Castaing,Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2024 Lafleur is an ode to leisurely, slow ripening, offering a delicately perfumed bouquet of violets, cherries, cassis, flowers and spices. Medium to full-bodied, layered and pure, it's seamless and polished with ultrarefined tannins and a delicate yet vibrant core of fruit, culminating in a long, ethereal finish laced with rose petal nuances. Less dense and structured than many recent vintages, it evokes the charm and elegance of 1983 or 1985, reimagined through a modern lens (and a cooler, wetter growing season), both in viticulture and vinification.

DRINKING WINDOW 2030 - 2044

date of review 04/2025