Exceptionally high quality, exclusive estate in the heart of the finest growing area of Pomerol. Owned by the Guinaudeau family and managed by the young, dynamic Baptiste Guinaudeau. So complex and beautiful. Plum, damson, strawberry, soy, wet rocks, seaweed… the nose is worth the entrance fee alone. The mouth is utter silk, power and elegance combined. Intense sweet fruit, fabulous juicy mid palate, supreme perfume in the mouth. It's so perfectly judged. The finish is so long and sublime. - April 2017

The 2016 Lafleur is blended of 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot grown mainly on gravel over clay. Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the nose begins by slowly releasing gorgeous, beguiling scents of truffles, black soil, crushed rocks and smoked meats, giving way to a beautiful perfume of red roses, dark chocolate-covered cherries, oolong tea and lavender with wafts of cigar box and iron ore. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is completely coated with taut, tightly wound yet ethereally weighted layers of earth, mineral and perfumed black fruits, firmly fixed by very fine-grained tannins and great freshness, finishing very long and incredibly fragrant. LPB

The texture of this wine is so memorable. The incredible tannins are so fine and creamy that they envelop both your mouth and your mind. The wine is full-bodied yet ethereal and balanced with incredibly energy and character. The flavors just keep on changing, from cherries and currants to truffles and earth. Some brick and terracotta, too. Fresh throughout with complete clarity. Great structure, yet creamy and light.

The 2016 Lafleur is an eternal, complete wine in which everything just seems to fall into place naturally. Creamy and voluptuous in the glass, with exceptional balance, the 2016 possesses superb textural intensity allied to soaring aromatics. Strong Cabernet Franc signatures give the wine brilliante and layers of saline-infused energy. Rose petal, mint, crushed flowers and dark red fruits abound, but it is the wine's total sense of completeness that is most astounding today. "I have to say, 2016 came totally out of the blue," Baptiste Guinadeau commented. "In 2010 and 2015 we had a pretty good idea of the kind of wines we were going to make during the growing season but in 2016 we really had no clue until harvest approached. It was only then that we started to get a sense of how the wines might turn out."

A thrill a minute as well as one of the most singular, exotic, elegant wines in the vintage, the 2016 Château Lafleur is a blend of 55% Cabernet Franc and 45% Merlot that’s only from the choice lots of estate vineyard. Brought up in one-third new French oak, this saturated ruby/purple-colored effort offers heavenly notes of raspberries, blueberries, camphor, dried flowers, and ground herbs, and it has a Grand Cru Burgundy-like complexity and elegance. Full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, ultra-pure, and seamless, it has flawless balance as well as a monster finish. Haute couture at its finest, this is a magical wine to drink over the coming 3-4 decades.

The 2016 Lafleur is a deeply serious Pomerol that is going to need considerable cellaring. Almost opaque in the glass, it has an almost overwhelmingly intense bouquet of blackberry, oyster shell and touches of graphite; quite strict, just as it showed at en primeur, and utterly compelling. The palate is medium-bodied with edgy tannin. A typically masculine Lafleur delivering firm grip, a lot of backbone and depth, wonderful mineralité and a persistent saline finish with the length of War and Peace. Cellar this Lafleur for at least 15 years if you want to witness it firing on all cylinders.
Vinous, Jan 2019

Deep crimson. Deeper and more concentrated than Pensées but less immediately seductive on the nose therefore. Very rich and sweet on the palate. Very rich and ripe. Velvety texture. Nervy too. Easy to see the Cabernet Franc here. Massive fruit over the tannins. Liquorice. Some violets and exotic notes. Really quite serious. Dense and a wine to have a conversation with. Minerally finish. Drink 2028-2045. - jancisrobinson.com, April 2017

A long way from being ready to go – I would suggest at least another six years – but it is going to be worth the wait for this wine. I’ve tasted it now on several separate occasions, and every time been blown away by its purity, succulence and precision. Blackberries, blackcurrants, liquorice, rosemary, aniseed and tight grilled tannins, all offset by violet aromatics. Serious, powerful, sets its own pace. Drinking Window 2026 - 2045
Tasted by : Jane Anson (at Bordeaux, France, 01 May 2020)
Part of Top scoring wines of 2020: 100 point wines