In comparison to the Grand Village, the 2020 Les Perrières De Lafleur comes from more limestone soils, and the blend is more Cabernet Franc-dominated, checking in as 71% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc) and the rest Merlot. It has an absolutely head-turning bouquet of red and blue fruits, fresh tobacco, truffle, and spring flowers, and it shows this incredible sense of chalky minerality on the palate. Focused and medium to full-bodied, with both power and richness, it shows a much more finessed and elegant profile compared to the bigger, more opulent Grand Village. Give bottles just 3-5 years and enjoy over the following two decades.

Unfurling in the glass with aromas of raspberries and cherries mingled with hints of rose petals and spices, the 2020 Les Perrières de Lafleur is medium to full-bodied, deep and velvety, with a concentrated core of fruit that's framed by beautifully refined tannins and animated by lively acids, concluding with a long, intensely mineral finish. As readers will remember, this exciting new project derives from holdings on the limestone plateau of Fronsac planted with massal selections from Lafleur.

Tasted by Jane Anson(at Primeur week tastings in Bordeaux, 01 May 2021)
This is a wine for those who really love going deep-diving into limestone. It performs the acrobatic, trapeze artist feat of tiptoeing high above the palate with gunsmoke, cool blueberry and redcurrant fruits and flowers curling upwards. Austere and fierce, stretching forward, then softening as it opens, although it takes its time to do so. There is really a feeling that they are doing something different here, thinking deeply about what it means to link wine's sense of a place to its expression in a glass. Brilliant. Harvest September 11 to 19.

Drinking Window 2024 - 2038

The 2020 Les Perrières is fabulous. Rich and heady in the glass, it offers up a compelling mix of sumptuous dark fruit and complicating savory and mineral undertones. Gravel, sage and menthol are buried under a huge core of blackberry and plum fruit. All the elements are so well-balanced in this embryonic Bordeaux Supérieur. Time in the glass brings out the wine's more delicate side.

71% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), 29% Merlot. Part of the Lafleur (Pomerol) stable. Cask sample. Deep, bright colour. Floral aromatics. Ripe and rich but more linear in form, a cool perception from the limestone-clay soils pervading. Juicy fruit, the tannins fresh and even saline. Finish long and dry. (JL)

Tasted blind. Very dark crimson. Fragrant with pure black fruit. Big, chewy tannins but balanced by the freshness of the dark fruit. Harmonious if rather oaky on the finish in this youthful state. (JH)