The 2022 Les Perrières de Lafleur is the broadest, most unctuous rendition of this wine to date, but it retains its taut, minerally identity for all that. Offering up aromas of mulberries, violets and pen ink, it's medium to full-bodied, rich and incisive, with terrific depth and persistence. As readers will remember, Les Perrières derives from parcels situated on the higher-altitude plateau of Fronsac, planted with vine material from Château Lafleur.

The 2022 Les Perrières de Lafleur shows just how adapted this higher-altitude site on the plateau of Fronsac is to warmer vintages. Wafting from the glass with aromas of mulberries and raspberries, sweet spices and rose petals, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, with racy acids and a taut, mineral profile. It's another brilliant effort from this visionary project.

The 2022 Les Perrieres De Lafleur comes from pure limestone soils (the same as in Saint-Emilion) and is 50% Merlot and 50% Bouschet. Its deep purple hue is followed by a Cabernet Franc-driven wine offering pure red and blue fruits as well as lots of floral, violet, and forest floor-like aromas and flavors. It's another medium to full-bodied, pure, seamless, impeccably balanced wine from this team that knocks it out of the park in the vintage. This is pure Fronsac brilliance.

So much sea-salt and chalkboard character with blue fruit and dark earth. Full-bodied yet chewy and linear with excellent length and intensity. 50% merlot and 50% cabernet franc.

Flowers, black raspberries, red plums, cherries, chocolate and black raspberries are all over the place. The medium-bodied wine has a strong sense of minerality you can taste and feel on the mid-palate and in the long, perfectly-ripe, fruit-filled finish. The fruits taste as if they were blended with crushed stones, giving you lift, complexity and vibrancy in the elegant finish. The wine blends 50% Cabernet Franc with 50% Merlot. The harvest took place September 9 - September 22. Drink from 2023-2040. Tasted en primeur May 2023

The 2022 Les Perrières, which is aged in one-third new oak, has a gorgeous, very pure and harmonious bouquet. Black berry, briary and light mineral scents turn more floral with aeration. Again, like the Grand Village, there is a underlying marine element. The palate is medium-bodied with pliant tannins, lovely structure, very harmonious with perfectly pitched acidity. Silky texture on the finish, this is the best Les Perrières to date, written after a comprehensive vertical a few weeks earlier.

The 2022 Les Perrières is dense and somber in bearing. A blast of dark fruit races across the palate, followed by super-expressive spice, leather, gravel and leather accents. In most vintages, the Les Perries is more showy, but the 2022 is decidedly reticent and virile today. I can't wait to taste it from bottle.

50% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), 50% Merlot. Cask sample. Marked by the chalky, limestone terroir and fragrance and structure of the Bouchet. Fresh and floral. Firm but refined tannins. Saline note on the finish. (JL)