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  • Country ranking ?

    894
  • Producer ranking ?

    35
  • Decanting time

    4h
  • When to drink

    2020-2035
  • Food Pairing

    Beef

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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The Story

Between the estates of Pétrus and La Fleur-Pétrus, amid vineyards, stands a stone house with closed shutters. The road that winds to the house between the vine rows has no signs or indications as to the name of the place. The construction looks more like a maintenance shed for the neighbouring estates than the main building of a winery. However, this is a house that makes one of the most desirable wines in Bordeaux: Château Lafleur.

Lafleur’s wines form an interesting contrast to their neighbour, Pétrus. Their terroirs differ significantly, even though the distance between them is only 50–100 metres. Whereas Pétrus is more seductively rich, full-bodied and intense, Lafleur is charming in its elegance, femininity and subtlety.
Lafleur’s wines are delightful, but they do require aging for at least twenty years in order to display their full, nuanced character. Guinaudeau’s investments into improving quality in all of Lafleur’s functions promise an even better future for the friends of Lafleur. Although tasting the 1947, 1950, 1961, 1975 or 1982, one can only wonder whether Lafleur’s wines could get any better?

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Wine Information

Between the estates of Pétrus and La Fleur-Pétrus, amid vineyards, stands a stone house with closed shutters. The road that winds to the house between the vine rows has no signs or indications as to the name of the place. The construction looks more like a maintenance shed for the neighbouring estates than the main building of a winery. However, this is a house that makes one of the most desirable wines in Bordeaux: Château Lafleur.

We drive into the yard and walk up to the door. It is opened by the cheerful Jacques Guinaudeau, fifth-generation owner and winemaker of the estate. Jacques’ great-great-grandfather Henri Greloud bought the land in 1872. Over time, ownership was transferred to Henri’s son Charles and then to Charles’s cousin André Robin, who was known for paying great attention to the quality of the estate’s wines. In 1946, the estate was inherited by André’s daughters Thérèse and Marie, who managed it for nearly four decades. It was under their leadership that the estate produced several magnificent vintages, of which the 1947, 1950, 1961 and 1975 stand out as legendary. In 1981, the sisters turned to their neighbours, the Moueix family, to ask whether Pétrus’s long-term winemaker, Jean-Claude Berrouet, might be interested in consulting and managing their estate. The partnership was made and bore fruit already the next year, when one of the best-ever vintages of Lafleur – 1982 – was created. Three years later, Thérèse died and Marie decided to lease the vineyards to her cousin Jacques Guinaudeau and his wife Sylvie. Since then, the Guinaudeaus have significantly developed the plots and production processes. Their methods and production philosophy are actually closer to Burgundy than Bordeaux. The Guinaudeaus bought the estate in 2002, which was also when their son Baptiste started to work there.

Jacques Guinaudeau leads us into the vineyard. He excitedly praises the uniqueness of the 4.5-hectare estate.
“Lafleur is a single-vineyard wine with exceptional terroir qualities. Firstly, it is located on a very gentle amphitheatrical slope to the north of Pétrus. The soil is clearly more gravelly and brown than the red clay at Pétrus. A comprehensive soil analysis in 1998 found that the estate comprises as many as five different types: the northwest has brown gravel, the south is more clay-based and sandy gravel, and the east has sandy clay with some gravel. In the middle is a mixture of all of those. These have completely different conditions in terms of the grapes’ ripening, size and concentration. The concentration is also affected by the old vines, with their average age of thirty years. The oldest vines actually go back five decades. We work the vineyard as four different plots, even though they go towards a single wine. We grow two varieties, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, but the differences in soil result in very different grapes within each variety. This diversity is the secret to Lafleur’s greatness,” Guinaudeau explains. Weaving between the densely planted vine rows, Jacques goes on: “The vineyard has around 8,000 vines per hectare. Through dense planting we aim not only to increase the grapes’ concentration, but also to protect them from direct sunlight. This is in order that we can ensure the refined style of our wines that results from their fresh fruitiness and crisp acids.”
Due to the terroir factors mentioned above, harvesting and winemaking are done in many phases. A separate wine is produced from each of the four microterroirs. The grapes are picked in many stages and vinified separately for each plot. Guinaudeau keeps track of this multiphase process with the help of a squared-paper notebook. In it he logs when each plot’s grapes are picked the vats in which they end up.

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Vintage 2001

Bordeaux / The year 2001 is known as the year of the winegrowers. The whole of Bordeaux suffered from a lot of rain and the resulting noble rot. Sauternes has been producing its best wines for decades, and there is good reason to talk about the Sauternes revolution. The best wine of the year is clearly Yquem. Parker's hundred-point Yquem sold for 300 euros en primeur, and today the price is 600 euros per bottle.

For red wines, the year was difficult. Cabernet Sauvignon, thanks to its thicker skin, did better than Merlot. The cold, rainy and cloudy growing period caused the grapes to ripen too slowly. The areas had to work more intensively. The grapes were rather small and produced concentrated wines. Latour can be considered the best buy. Good buys also include Ausone, Pétrus and Le Pin.

Sauternes Vintage Report: Rapid appearance of botrytis on ripe grapes, rich in sugar. Ideal October: brief rainstorms, high temperatures, windy and sunny afternoons. Very sweet but balanced wines with pronounced noble rot and remarkable complexity. A memorable year and very uniform success for all liqueurs.

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Tasting note

ending

Gentle and Extensive

flavors

Toasty, Blackcurrant, Coffee, Cedar and New-oak

nose

Youthful, Complex and Seductive

taste

High tannin, Well-structured, Youthful, Medium-bodied, Firm, Focused and Dry

Verdict

Intelligent and Fine

Written Notes

2001 Lafleur is a classic Lafleur, and 2001 is a great vintage for Pomerol. I will never forget when one of the Moueixs told me, ‘It will be interesting to compare the 2001 and 2000 over the next ten years,’ and that ultimately one day the 2001 might be held in higher regard.
  • 96p

Tasted in February 2022. Half bottle. 60% Merlot + 40% Cabernet Franc. It was the eighth time I tasted this wine, and the previous encounter with it was in 2012! Still mesmerizing quality! This vintage has always been one of my favourite Lafleurs and a wine I always have adored, mainly because of its incredibly captivating nose of truffles, richness, sophisticated touch and fabulous structure. Utterly impressive stuff.

  • 96p

Performing slightly less impressively from bottle than it did from cask, this wine’s Cabernet Franc element has come forward, revealing a distinctive herbal, bell pepper, vegetal character that kept my score from going higher. Nevertheless, there is plenty to like about this 2001 Pomerol. It possesses a saturated ruby/purple color, powerful aromas (kirsch liqueur, raspberries, and blackberries), an earthy, muscular, chunky character, and the most tannic personality of any Pomerol I tasted. While not the huge blockbuster Lafleur can often produce, it is well-built.

  • 92p
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Origin

Pomerol, Bordeaux
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