1979 Château Lafleur
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Tasting notes
Deep ruby with brick rim – lively but with some amber at the rim. Considerable weight and impact on the nose. Fleshy, sweety with distinctly spicy topnotes. Definitely fully mature nose – not to say a note of dusty attics. Fantastic richness on the palate entry – really seriously exciting – but then the less sophisticated tannin management of old really starts to make its presence felt. Still quite sharp jagged tannins intrude on the palate in a way that seems out of synch with a wine with such an obviously mature nose. Really, a wine from another era, but a terribly impressive one, so long as you taste it, forgivingly, with that in mind. Thick, impressive. Lovely sweetness at the start and then an aggressive metallic streak. Very very ripe. Became increasingly metallic in the glass. (No votes for wine of the night) (JR)
Critic scores
Robert Parker
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
Along with Haut Brion, this is one of the two candidates for the wine of the vintage. The wine is approaching full maturity, yet still seems so atypical for a 1979, a phenomenally concentrated, thick, massively endowed wine with huge levels of extract, tannin, and power. The wine still has some dusty tannins and a huge nose of sweet black truffles intermixed with blackberries, plums, figs, and minerals. Very powerful, as well as enormously endowed, this is a remarkable effort in this vintage. I am still not sure off if the tannins will ever resolve themselves, but this wine, which is just approaching full maturity, should go on for at least another 25 or more years. Anticipated maturity: Now-2030. Last tasted, 11/02.
About the producer
The Société Civile du Ch. Lafleur is the collective name for the Guinaudeau family’s wines and estates. These are some of the Right Bank’s most famous wines, including Ch. Lafleur and Les Pensées in Pomerol, along with Les Perrières, Les Champs Libres and Ch. Grand Village in Fronsac.