Bordeaux 2014: Harvest report from the Guinaudeau

Bonjour,

The 2014 vintage is providing us with so much pleasure… As we told you in the last email on 17th September, we were in a sunny disposition, and we still are. We finished the harvest with the Cabernets Franc plots from Grand Village on the 8th October in excellent conditions…

We worked hard throughout the summer to keep the grapes healthy. We must say that the weather in September and in October has been exceptional. Optimum ripeness was reached in all the different terroirs.

We have to harvest at just the right moment when the grapes are very ripe. It is a key success factor to harvest each parcel at the right time. If the harvest is done too early, phenolic maturity would not be reached, however with a late harvest the result would be too heavy, without enough freshness and precision.

Concerning Lafleur, we harvested:

- The Merlots from the lot A on Friday 26th September

- The Merlots from the lot B on Monday 29th September

- The Cabernets Francs from the successful lot D on Sunday 5th October

- The Cabernets Francs from the lot E and F on Monday 6th October

We have just started the running-off (lot A and B from Lafleur). The Merlots combine power and delicacy, with a mind-blowing balance and freshness. Cabernets Francs from the lot D, are macerating, but we have already achieved a complexity and aromatic intensity we associate with the great millésimes…

The maceration is done for the white; they are now digesting the lees which are particularly rich this year, and we are doing a batonnage every two days. The framework is getting there, the tasting from the barrels confirms our first impressions. The white should be on another level for the 2014 vintage…

We will share our impressions about the vintage very soon.

Bien Cordialement,

Les Guinaudeau

The Guinaudeau in London's West End

Last Tuesday Justerini & Brooks welcomed Julie and Baptiste Guinaudeau from Château Lafleur to London. Our charming guests hosted a masterclass tasting in our Mayfair premises followed by an exclusive dinner in our private dining room in St James’s.

Baptiste Guinaudeau led the masterclass tasting. We began with Château Grand Villages reds from 2008 and 2009, along with a Château Grand Villages white from 2013. For those not au fait with the Guinaudeau’s home property in the commune of Mouillac, these wines offer incredible value for money and plenty of class. The new and exciting Champs Libres Blanc followed - 100% Sauvignon from Sancerre clones, grown on pure limestone and made in tiny quantities – it showed tremendous breed and complexity.

’ G’ Act 2, from the 2010 vintage, is the second vintage of this project. It hails from various plots in the Fronsac commune. Baptiste explains that the blend is the reverse of Château Lafleur being 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc and the soils are pure clay and limestone, so similar to the best sites in St Emilion. The 2010 displays outstanding potential and shows the skill of the Guinaudeau team in making wines that gives unbridled enjoyment. Les Pensées de Lafleur, the second wine of Lafleur was represented by the 2008 vintage; classic, refined and intellectual, a great Pomerol with a long future ahead of it. Completing the tasting was Château Lafleur 1998 – a monumental and brooding wine that was slow to unfurl, but gave a sense of incredible presence and class as it did. 

At the St. James’s dinner some of the UK’s biggest private collectors joined Baptiste and Julie Guinaudeau for an evening that showed just what remarkable wines these are. The two 2013 white wines (as shown at the tasting) got even better with time in the glass, retaining their freshness but achieving even more complexity as they opened up. A brace of Pensées de Lafleurs followed: 1999 was seductive and mature, 2000 was simply out of this world and got the whole room talking. It was firm, young, yet packed with an utterly bewitching profile which kept evolving and expanding. The final flight was three vintages of Château Lafleur. 1998, which released its dark ample profile in the glass. If the Pensées 2000 is a modern classic then the ‘grand vin’ from 2000 will turn out to be a legend. A 100 point wine, it is stunningly poised and aristocratic, with a beauty that can just be glimpsed, but begins to slowly reveal itself in the glass. And then the star of the night – Château Lafleur 1989. For me certainly one of the greatest Bordeaux I’ve ever drunk. A combination of richness and class that is extremely rare. Full of layered nuance that never stops expanding, and a length of flavour that went on and on. It’s a wine you think about the following day, and one you will never forget.

 

Hew Blair, Chairman

Bordeaux 2009 - Scores on the doors...

We understand that the Wine Spectator are first to publish their scores for 2009 Bordeaux. We haven’t had a chance to look for ourselves, but James Suckling is apparently in typically buoyant mood, rating many wines near to perfection. We too have succumbed to the allure of numbers. In a highly scientific approach all eight members of the team have been asked to rank their favourite wines from the vintage. There are six categories: `First Growths`, including La Mission Haut Brion, Le Pin, Lafleur, Cheval Blanc and Ausone; `Left Bank and Graves` (excluding 1sts); `Right Bank` (excluding 1sts); best value buys (from either bank); top five Sauternes/Barsac and top five dry whites. The top ranked wine from each taster is awarded a maximum `dix points`, all the way down to the tenth placed wine, which receives just one point, a bit like Eurovision... then we tot up the scores and voila, we have a comprehensive list of the best wines.

The results are in and we start with the First Growths. 75 out of a potential 80 is quite an endorsement for Latour, a staggering wine and quite deserving of first place. It is also interesting to note that the list alternates between left/right bank until no. 8, making it difficult to call as a left/right bank vintage at the very top end.


Latour - 75
Le Pin - 67
Margaux - 59
Ausone - 57
Lafleur - 46
Lafite Rothschild - 40
Cheval Blanc - 38
Haut Brion - 25
La Mission Haut Brion - 17
Mouton Rothschild - 16

Results for the other categories will follow in the coming days.