2009 Château Lafleur

Community Tasting Notes (15) Avg Score: 96.8 points

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  5/15/2022 - Cailles wrote: 95 Points

  6 Vintages Le Pin vs Petrus vs Lafleur vs Other Pomerol: All wines tasted single blind, not decanted. Served in 6 vintage flights with a alternating 4th Pomerol added to every flight. A few observations: 1) Le Pin handily won this tasting, for me (4 out of 6 vintages at 96/97 pts) and the consensus. Made in a charming way, with loads of perfectly integrated, luxurious oak-derived notes, this wines drink well young and works very well in a larger tasting like this were you can’t follow the wines over an evening. Complex, round, intense, sexy yet elegant. 2) Lafleur came in second, despite mostly only hinting at its potential with very high complexity, it’s wonderful, typical herbal and earthy notes, all embedded in an impeccable, light structural frame. But they need time. 3) Most vintages of Petrus underperformed tonight (all below 95 pts). They would have needed more time to open up and come together. 4) 2009/10 vintages are great and unsurprisingly got the highest scores, 2008 confirmed it status as a Bdx vintage that is excellent to drink today. More information/rankings in the tasting story.
  
  TN: I particularly like this vintage of Lafleur. Same as a bottle a few years back this showed so weightless and fine, especially considering the hot vintage. In this tasting, without much more than 20 minutes time to focus on the four 2009s, the nose never really fully opened up but the palate the wine was on fire. Same as a bottle a few years ago (rated 95 pts), this is among the less ripe 2009s right bank with so much bright red berry and floral notes, usually not associated with a hot vintage. The structure is impeccable, the elegance high, the freshness is there. From start to the long finish, this has a lot of tension without being excessive in any category. The very precise herbal and fresh minty notes lend the wine even more freshness and keep it light. As with all Lafleurs tonight, the complexity could not keep up with the Le Pin but not necessarily because it is not there but because Lafleurs just need more time to develop and open up and are less in your face hedonistic. A very promising wine.
  
  Decanting: This would have needed a few hours in the decanter.

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  5/11/2022 - Collector1855 wrote: 96 Points

  Petrus vs. Le Pin vs. Lafleur 2004-2011, blind (Fribourg): Ripe dark fruit, cherry, blueberry and herbs. rich palate, a bit pruney, similar style like the Clos l’Eglise next to it.

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  5/9/2022 - sirpat00 wrote: 92 Points

  Pétrus vs Lafleur vs Le Pin (Fribourg): 6 vintage face-off (2006-2011) Pétrus vs Lafleur vs Le Pin vs alternating Pomerol pirate. The wines were served in vintage flights of 4 and not decanted. Main observations were: 1/ Le Pin knocked it out of the park coming in first in 4 out of 6 vintages while Pétrus came in last with not a single vintage win (Lafleur came in best in two off-vintages, 2006 and 2008), 2/ The best overall vintage was 2009 (runner-up 2010) while 2006 came in last (scoring range 85-92), 3/ best bottle was Le Pin 2009 (99), followed by Pétrus 2010 and Le Pin 2010 (98 each), 4/ best pirate was Clos L’Eglise 2009 (97). List of wines per score included in the tasting story.
  
  Tasting note:
  This had a hard stance against the others in this vintage and came across too extracted, although the seemingly overripe fruit was mitigated by a nice floral layer and some mineral notes. Palate still pretty wild and somewhat all over the place.

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  9/20/2019 - Jeff Leve wrote: 99 Points

  Dark garnet in color, to understand the perfume it's easy. Take a shot of chocolate, sprig of mint, handful of truffles with a bushel of plums and cherries blending it all together you get the idea. As good as that is, the fireworks is on the palate where the wall of fruit coats your palate with layer after of ripe, black plums, kirsch, wild cherries and powdered dark chocolate. Intense, but not over the top, the wine is hangs with you, builds and expands for over 60 seconds!

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  6/23/2019 - sirpat00 wrote: 95 Points

  2009 Bordeaux 10 years in the bottle 2-day horizontal; 6/23/2019-6/24/2019 (Fribourg): Part of a grand Bordeaux 2009 tasting spanning 2 days that revealed 1) a right bank struggling with overripe fruit and overwhelming tannins, 2) wide spreak between top performers and laggards, 3) left bank, and especially Margaux, outshone the right bank cousins, 4) Top wines: Palmer, Margaux, Cheval Blanc, Vieux Chateau Certan.
  
  Tasting note:
  Ripe fruit, some green herbs and savoury. Plush texture, with a good balance and fine aromatics. Intricate and finely structured.

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