Les Champs Libres, Guinaudeau, 2022

Name: Les Champs Libres, Guinaudeau
Brand: Château Grand Village
Price: 202.76 GBP

Available Vintages

all 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

justerini & brooks tasting note

Rapidly breaking ground as one of Bordeaux’s most exciting under-the-radar whites, Lafleur’s Les Champs Libres ‘22 is proudly 100% Sauvignon Blanc from majority (80%) Sancerre clonal material. The principal parcel for the blend is planted on profound clay over limestone on the higher plateau, while the remaining 20% of the blend is a parcel called Les Acacias, planted in the 1980s with a Bordeaux clone of Sauvignon. Concentrated, serious and yet somehow more vital and sparkling in its fruit than many, Les Champs Libres is an intellectual proposition, as one teases out notes of lemon, tangerine, apple pith, dried pineapple and peach skins. Less smoky and reductive than it has been, it feels like a wine that has found its feet, alive with a beam of vibrant acidity. Raised in 90% new oak, it will repay five to ten years in the cellar.

critic reviews

93/100Chris Kissack,The Wine Independent

This is 100% Sauvignon Blanc in this vintage, fully barrel-fermented and barrel-aged, using 75% new oak in this case, more than double that used for Grand Village. This echoes the saline, mineral white citrus fruits seen in Grand Village, with a bitter and pithy energy. The palate is fresh, polished, with bitter layers of toasted citrus fruits, with a pithy grip and fresh acid backbone intertwined with the silky, polished citrus fruit core. This is obviously very primary and spiced, with a long and warming finish, peppery and bright. There is a style here that reminds me more of a wine from Dagueneau than from anywhere else in Bordeaux;it is tense, linear, biting in its structure, with an incredibly long, tingling finish. A baby which desires some cellar time, at least five years although the potential is undoubtedly greater than that comment suggests. The alcohol is 14% on the label.

DRINKING WINDOW 2024 - 2040

date of review 06/2025

93/100Neal Martin,Vinous

The 2022 Les Champs Libres, one of the whites from the Guinaudeaus at Lafleur made from Sauvignon Blanc, has a refined bouquet with white peach, nectarine and a hint of lanolin blossoming in the glass. The palate retains its Burgundian allure with fine delineation, clean and precise notes and a hint of orange rind. It offers gentle grip and persistence in the mouth with a fresh, vibrant finish. This has a lovely texture and so much freshness. It is superb.

DRINKING WINDOW 2028 - 2042

date of review 02/2025

95/100Jane Anson,Inside Bordeaux

Reserved aromatics on the opening, an undertow of gunsmoke and slate, there is flesh here but it's contained, a promise for future years. Exceptional grip and lift, cool lemongrass set against fleshier white peach, pumice stone, fennel, oyster shell and white tea, strong personality, great contrast of textures, this climbs through the palate. August 24 harvest. Vines come partly massal selection Bordeaux, partly massal selection from Sancerre. Cool clay soils. Fast becoming an unmissable white Bordeaux, from the Guinaudeau family. Harvest 23 to 25 August. A buy.

DRINKING WINDOW 2025 - 2038

date of review 02/2025

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

Made of 100% Sauvignon Blanc, the Les Champs Libres 2022 Blanc reveals aromas of verbena, lemon oil, kumquat, jasmine, spring flowers and menthol. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and incisive, its built around bright, racy acids and has an ultra-refined texture along with a resonant, perfumed finish. This gorgeous Les Champs Libres represents the essence of what can be produced with grapes coming from a great limestone terroir that also benefit from the impressive expertise of the Guinaudeau family.

date of review 04/2023