The finest wine I've tasted from this estate, the 2019 Château La Gaffelière is pure Saint-Emilion brilliance and offers a complex, intense bouquet of red and black fruits, iron, truffly earth, tobacco, and bouquet garni. This carries to a medium to full-bodied, pure, layered, elegant, yet concentrated 2019 with perfect tannins, plenty of mid-palate depth, and a gorgeous finish. It shows the perfumed, elegant, already accessible style of this great vintage (and I thoroughly enjoyed this bottle), but it's going to evolve gracefully over the coming 30 years or more. Bravo! May 2023

The 2019 La Gaffelière has a wonderful bouquet of mineral-rich black and red fruit and sous-bois, a little tobacco and pencil box emerging with time. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins, fleshy and ripe. Perfectly balanced, leading to an almost Left Bank, graphite-tinged finish courtesy of the 40% Cabernet Franc, the 2019 continues the purple patch of this Saint-Émilion stalwart. No doubt a wine that will give 30 to 40 years of drinking pleasure.

A vibrant, fragrant red with aromas of blackberries, currants, walnuts and mint chocolate. Medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins. Pretty walnut notes on the polished finish. Fantastic length. Driven acidity and focus. Try in 2025.

"Sporting a deep garnet-purple color, the 2019 La Gaffeliere reveals a tantalizingly bright, fresh nose of ripe black plums, crushed blackberries and warm black cherries with touches of lavender, star anise, Sichuan pepper and fragrant earth. The vibrant black fruits completely fill the medium to full-bodied palate with loads of crunchy, energetic flavours, framed by wonderfully plush tannins and a lively line of freshness, finishing with a mineral twist. Irresistibly scrumptious!" Lisa Perrotti-Brown, June 2020

The 2019 La Gaffelière wafts from the glass with a rich bouquet of blackberries and cherries mingled with subtle hints of burning embers and loamy soil that's framed by a deft application of creamy new oak. Medium to full-bodied, deep and seamless, it's a concentrated, vibrant wine built around bright acids and fine, powdery tannins. Its vivid fruit tones and classical balance make this Cabernet Franc-rich blend a promising candidate for sustained bottle age. Anyone who has tasted the great wines this estate produced in the 1950s and 1960s knows how great this site can be; and with stricter selection as well as the elimination of fruit from vines growing on the plain from the blend, that potential appears to be being unleashed at last.

60% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Franc. Glowing purplish crimson. Complex, distinctive nose suggests mulberries. A smudgy, cloud-like impression rather than a sharp spear! You could drink this tonight, with its sweet fruit with hints of rose petals and dry, saline finish. Very different from most of its peers. (JR)