Les Champs Libres, Guinaudeau, 2022

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.

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.

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.