1998 Château Lafleur

Community Tasting Notes (40) Avg Score: 94.8 points

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  4/1/2024 - Serge Birbrair Likes this wine:

  Side by side with 1999 Lafleur it left 99 in the dust. Better fruit, better expression, truly amazing wine.

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  9/25/2023 - Vinum Deorum wrote: 92 Points

  A wine that leaves me intrigued and skeptical. It seems too young on the nose, but slightly evolved on the palate. This bottle came from the cellar of a 3 michelin stars restaurant, where it has been stored since delivery in 2000, so I guess it is truly pristine provenance and storage. We made sure the bottle was opened 6 hours before dinner, and decanted 1h30 hour before service. Slightly austere and monolithic on the palate with vegetal hints and earthy notes. Lacks the energy and balance I would have expected. It is powerful and long, but without the structure or the acidity that could show the wine is tasted at a too early stage?
  
  Overall a nice wine, but far from its reputation or from the depth and elegance one can find with other Pomerol from this top vintage.

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  9/1/2023 - Jeff Leve wrote: 98 Points

  The nose is intoxicating with its wild cherry liqueur, flowers, licorice, cedar, mint, and black with red fruits. The wine is full-bodied, rich, powerful, vibrant, deep, long, and exotic, with its unique textural-experience and display of fruits. Just starting to open, the wine remains fairly-priced for a Lafleur of this quality, especially when you consider its bottle age. Drink from 2023-2050.

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  11/21/2022 - aagrawal wrote: 95 Points

  Dinner with the wine group (Cindy's Place): Exceptional nose; red currant, capsicum; palate is full bodied, silky, a bit of capsicum, black fruited, classic Bordeaux character, not polished but well integrated, some mint; finish is long. 95

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  7/17/2022 - Cailles wrote: 92 Points

  Annual BYO Pre-Dinner (mostly mature Bordeauxs): The Pomerol legend from a great Right bank vintage? What could possibly go wrong? Opening the bottle far too early! This was nowhere near to be ready and it didn’t help that the wine was not decanted. 92 pts for the substance and the intellectually intriguing potential.
  
  TN: Rather muted nose. On the palate, however, the wine is much more open, although still young, very young. Dark red berries, herbs, lots of minerality, herbs and spices, some toasty notes. You can sense that the complexity is high, the substance is impressive, the precision is too. But the wine isn‘t as round and harmonious as it could be. This will need much more time in the cellar to soften, open up, become tertiary and form a harmonious composition.
  
  Decanting: Not decanted. This could have needed 3-4 hours in a decanter at least.

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