Château Lafleur 2025, Pomerol
IN BOND
Delivery 2028
Appellation - Pomerol
Owner - Jacques and Sylvie Guinaudeau
The 2025 blend of 51% cabernet franc and 49% merlot.
Second wine – Les Pensées de Lafleur
Annual production – 18,000 bottles
TASTING NOTES
The 2025 Lafleur is generous and expressive, bursting with aromas of sweet cherries and raspberries mingled with notions of licorice, anise and violets. Full-bodied, dense and muscular, with a fleshy attack that segues into an ample, layered core of primary fruit, it's built around plenty of sweet, powdery tannin. This is a large-scaled Lafleur endowed with everything in abundance.
96/98
William Kelley, Wine Advocate, April 2026
The 2025 Lafleur was picked early, from August 26 to 28 and from September 10 to 12 for the Cabernet Franc. Of course, this is the first year when the wine is classified as Vin de France after water was added to the soil, contravening Pomerol's AC rules. Discussing at length with Baptiste Guinaudeau, whilst I can see that it would essentially resuscitate the parched vine, the amounts are too little to affect the wine when considering the actual rainfall figures. For sure, it has a bashful bouquet at first and demands time to really open in the glass, 10 to 15 minutes. Only then does it reveal enticing scents of blackcurrant, bilberry, crushed stone and iris flower, all beautifully defined and very succinct—quintessential Lafleur. The palate is medium-bodied and framed by chiselled tannins that lend this Pomerol beguiling symmetry. What really marks this Lafleur is its tremendous persistence on the finish. It just goes on and on. This is a great Lafleur, irrespective of what it took to get there. Drinking Window 2034 - 2060.
97/99
Neal Martin, vinous.com, May 2026
A cool and perfectly integrated wine with a vivid and poised nature, superb focus and precision. It’s so perfumed and dense yet weightless and polished. Endless finish. 51% cabernet franc and 49% merlot.
98/99
James Suckling, JamesSuckling.com, May 2025
High perfume, iris, peony, fragrant and finessed, a slow slow slow unroll of slate and crayon, saffron, grilled cumin, oyster shell, cassis pastille. Such a fabulous wine that has intense interest around it this year, after leaving the Pomerol AOC, and yet manages to shrug it off and simply concentrate on doing what it does best. 33% new oak. Harvest August 26 to September 12. 2035-2060.
98
Jane Anson, JaneAnson.com, April 2026
The 2025 Lafleur is a soft, open-knit wine with mid-weight structure and modest complexity by the standards of this property and the Grand Vin. Perhaps this will gain more volume and complexity with time in barrel. Ultimately, though, the 2025 comes across as diluted and light at this stage. 2033 - 2055
90/93
Antonio Galloni, vinous.com, April 2026
