2022 Pensees de Lafleur

Truffles, black cherries, and dark chocolate fill the perfume. The wine is rich, lush, opulent, and deep, with layers of deep, plums, dark cocoa, and fresh mint, that adds a refreshing touch to the finish. The wine blends 57% Merlot with 43% Cabernet Franc.

The 2022 Pensées de Lafleur is a head-turning, sensual wine, bursting with aromas of minty cherries and berries mingled with orange zest, black truffle and rose petal. Full-bodied, velvety and layered, it's deep, suave and seamless, with an enveloping core of fruit and tannins so polished that they caress the palate. This cuvée, derived from vines growing in the part of Lafleur's vineyard through which a water course once flowed and where the soils are richer in clay and better hydrated, still lives in the shadow of its grander sibling, but it's a must-purchase for me every year.

Leading off the wines from this fabulous château, the 2022 Pensées De Lafleur is based on 57% Merlot and 43% Bouchet (an older Cabernet Franc selection) that's from a unique vein of more clay soils in the vineyard. It's a sensational wine in its own right, and readers shouldn't overlook this. Ripe black cherries, damp earth, chocolate, and foresty, winter savory and tobacco notes all define the aromatics, and it's a voluptuous, round, incredibly seamless, sexy Pensées that's better than the vast majority of chateaux’s Grand Vins.