Château Lafleur

Château Lafleur, Pomerol, 2023

Name: Château Lafleur, Pomerol
Brand: Château Lafleur
Price: 2181.61 GBP

98/100

Inside Bordeaux

98-100/100

The Wine Independent

97-99/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

delivery

in bond

Broking

2023
3x75cl
DP
£2,181.61

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Omri explained 2023 is "not a solaire vintage, it’s not a “classical” cool vintage, it’s not another hybrid vintage like 2016, 2018 or 2020 with a wet, cold spring and then a very hot, dry summer… The best we’ve come up with so far is it’s an extreme vintage with no real extremes… It felt extreme when we were working in the vineyard, it was challenging and complex, but when we look back at the data, it was quite unremarkable.” The wines they have produced certainly are remarkable and very much appeal to our palates. They are dense, but less overly fruity than recent greats like 2019 and 2022. They have wonderful aromatics and bright, tense cores of fruit framed by gloriously ripe tannins packed with detail. It's a masterful range, which sits right up there with the very best from these estates. After the demonstrative Pensées, this is a more reserved proposition. Following some aeration, gorgeous notes of cigar tobacco, violets and gravelly cassis emerge. Complex and demure, inviting and mysterious. The palate is so sophisticated, such refinement and such purity – the complexity here is achieved without any edges and angles, just sheer detail and finesse. A multifaceted, cerebral beauty. Just sensational. 56% Bouchet and 46% Merlot.

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

98-100/100

Lisa Perrotti-Brown,

The Wine Independent

A blend of 54% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc) and 46% Merlot, the 2023 Lafleur has a deep garnet-purple color. It slowly unfurls with very pure scents of wild blueberries and violets, opening out to notes of boysenberry preserves, licorice, rose bud tea, sassafras, and fragrant earth. The medium to full-bodied palate is deceptively ethereal, yet amazingly dense, with super-fine, pixilated tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long and fragrant. Wow!

drinking window 2030 - 2060

date of review 05/2024

98/100

Jane Anson,

Inside Bordeaux

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.

drinking window 2030 - 2046

date of review 05/2024

97-99/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2023 Lafleur was picked from September 7 to 17 and is the usual blend of roughly equal parts Bouchets (Cabernet Franc) and Merlot. It has a very backward nose at first, only reluctantly opening. Tobacco and touches of shucked oyster shell surface with air. This is a more tertiary bouquet—completely different in style to the neighboring Pétrus. The palate is very linear and strict, like the nose, fresh with a tincture of dark chocolate and wrapped up with black fruit, black pepper and a touch of tea leaves toward the finish. The Bouchets is very expressive on the close, and it lingers beautifully. This is not a flamboyant Lafleur—it is very reflective of the growing season, perhaps a more cerebral wine that will be fascinating to observe as it ages. This is one of the few profound wines this vintage, yet it’s still a challenge. This is a wine for those who like cryptic crosswords and Pomerol.

drinking window 2030 - 2065

date of review 04/2024

product details

Specifications

Country:

Region:

Appellation:

Producer:

style:

Grape Variety:

Merlot Cabernet Franc

abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.