Creamy blackberry, squid ink, cocoa bean, liquorice, crushed rose petals, intense, touch of soy, broth, clear salinity and grip. This is a well that you can fall into, could almost be io the Left Bank here because there is a sombre edge to it but as it opens, it shows its more joyful side, and this is a wonderful wine. As I said for the En Primeur sample, 'it provides a welcome sense of continuity in a vintage where the byword is excess'. 25% new oak for ageing, with the other 75% in barrels that were used at 9 months old after ageing the white wines. Harvest 7 and 17 September. Jean-Baptiste Guinaudeau owner and winemaker, along with an exceptionally invested team, harvest September 3 to 17.

Blueberries, blackcurrants, cherries, and floral notes with hints of liquorice, espresso, and dark chocolate. The palate is focused, structured, and tightly framed, with flawless tannins that are barely perceptible yet give immense poise. Vibrant yet restrained, this wine is built for the long haul, offering racehorse-like energy and streamlined texture. Initially electric, it becomes more seductive over time, revealing velvety chocolate, lilac, and a creamy, spiced backbone. A wine for contemplation, not for immediate drinking. Powerful, elegant, and profoundly structured.

A structured Lafleur with tannins that spread across the palate that are polished and serious. Full and so beautiful. Shows complexity with white pepper, cloves, and rose stems. Velvety and thoughtful. 51% cabernet franc and 49% merlot.

Delivers the density and serious character of Lafleur, but while this is deep in colour it is not impenetrable, with more nuance than many, jewel ruby with vibrant reflections. Clear austerity to the tannins but this is a wine that always takes patience, and it provides a welcome sense of continuity in a vintage where the byword is excess. Confident, careful, precise, with red roses, peony, heather, slate, steel, graphite, incense, blueberry and raspberry fruit, and oyster shell salinity, layered and joyful, with cooling mint leaf on the finish. Jean-Baptiste Guinaudeau so often sets the conversation in a vintage, and he is doing so again here. Harvest September 3 to 17, 30% new oak. Potential 100.

A deep, gourmand vintage for this singular estate, the 2022 Lafleur unfurls in the glass with aromas of mulberries and cherries mingled with hints of rose petal, iris, orange zest and vine smoke. Full-bodied, layered and enveloping, it's pure and seamless, with supple tannins, huge depth at the core and a long, resonant finish. One of the most characterful as well as most consistent wines produced in contemporary Bordeaux, it will surely emerge as one of the vintage's high points.

The 2022 Lafleur was picked from 3 September with the early Merlot and then over the next two weeks. It underwent double sorting in the vineyard and then at reception, aged in 25% new oak. This is bestowed a compelling bouquet, a mixture of red and black fruit, iodine and incense, beautifully defined, maybe more sensual than recent vintages. The palate is blessed with unerring symmetry, a fine thread of acidity, a graphite seam from start to finish and a constant sapidity. Extremely precise and ineffably persistent, this is an intellectual and delicious Lafleur - a lethal combination. Among the best that Baptiste and Julie Guinaudeau have conjured in recent years and that's a very impressive canon of work.

Moving to the Grand Vin, the 2022 Château Lafleur is 51% Bouschet (an older selection of Cabernet Franc) and 49% Merlot brought up in a mix of new and used barrels. It's a concentrated beast of a wine offering incredibly purity in its red, blue, and black fruits as well as notes of spring flowers, minty herbs, graphite, and chocolate. Full-bodied on the palate, it has a great mid-palate, building tannins, and a straight, focused, inward style that's going to demand significant bottle age.

The 2022 Lafleur is shaping up to be majestic. It is a wine of tremendous stature. All the elements are so well put together that nothing in particular stands out. There’s tremendous depth to the 2022, and the tannins are almost nonexistent. Cabernet Franc (Bouchet) inflections soar out of the glass to play off a deep, resonant dark fruit core. Mocha, dried herbs, menthol and rose petals add an exotic flair on the substantial finish. “We have to adapt to each vintage and essentially forget the past,” Baptiste Guinaudeau told me at Lafleur. “We opted for longer macerations, with no pigéage and fewer pumpovers than most years.

51% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), 49% Merlot. Cask sample. Very embryonic, even recalcitrant at the moment. Changes in the glass but all the components are there – gourmand fruit, plentiful but fine tannins, plush texture and better balance than Les Pensées. Firm, long, austere finish. As always will need time. (JL)

The 2022 Lafleur has turned out even better in bottle than I anticipated. Wafting from the glass with exotic aromas of mulberries, potpourri, iris, blood orange and incense, it's full-bodied, dense and layered, with a deep and multidimensional core of sweet, succulent fruit underpinned by velvety tannins, concluding with a long, expansive, rose-inflected finish. Élevage has brought a sense of harmony and classicism to the volume and richness that were already apparent en primeur, delivering a Lafleur for the ages.