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By Linden Wilkie, 22 Oct 2020

The Guinaudeau family have been producing fine wine in Bordeaux’s Right Bank for generations. At the heart of the family estate is one of the world’s most individual and high quality wines – Château Lafleur, and from the same Pomerol estate, Les Pensées de Lafleur. Two varieties are employed to express the complex terroir within the estate – Bouchet (Cabernet Franc) and Merlot, in near equal measure.

The Fine Wine Experience was appointed as ‘ambassadors’ for the estate in April 2020, and we are proud to represent the family’s wider estate, which includes high quality Right Bank wines at very accessible prices. More on those below.

Château Lafleur has been special to us for many years, and we have conducted over the years numerous vertical tasting dinners, demonstrating to tremendous depth, character and longevity of these wines. You can read more about those events here. We have always sought to provide a depth of vintages in stock to reflect this. Currently we have 22 vintages available, including the 2019 offered en primeur.

The Guinaudeau family’s ancestor Henri Greloud bought this rectangular 4.5ha parcel in Pomerol in 1872 – a ‘garden vineyard’ comprising three terroirs for this label – sandy-clay gravels, clay gravels, and gravelly sands. It’s this rare combination of different soils within this small plot, high on the Pomerol plateau, and through equal parts Merlot and Bouchet (the Cabernet Franc propogated from massale selections here through generations), that the natural intensity, aromatic and flavour complexity, the power and finesse unique to Lafleur can be delivered.
The 2019 is 53% Merlot and 47% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc).

Les Pensées
Each year this wine is produced from a unique terroir – a ‘finger’ of sandy-gravelly clay soil within the Château Lafleur vineyard in Pomerol. This wine is made separately as ‘Les Pensées’. Sylvie and Jacques Guinaudeau created this label in 1987, originally conceived as a ‘second wine’, but today it is its own wine, from its own plot, within Château Lafleur.

The 2019 is 55% Merlot and 45% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc). It is rarer than Château Lafleur, and the quality/price relationship make this a connoisseur’s insider choice.

The Guinaudeau family farm and produce a range of superb wines from their estate – Château Grand Village, in the Right Bank village of Mouillac. The rigorous mentality, the care and attention, and diligent hard work applied at Château Lafleur are applied here too. The appellations these wines are labelled with are humble, but each of these wines delivers quality you would expect from this family.

Les Perrières you will note is labelled in the same style as both Château Lafleur and Les Pensées. This was created in 2018 by the next generation – Julie and Baptiste Guinaudeau. Here Bouchet (Cabernet Franc) cuttings from the Château Lafleur vineyard in Pomerol find a new expression through the limestone soils of nearby Fronsac. It took the Guinaudeau family nine years to find, acquire and plant the parcels. Initial full-scale experimental vintages were labeled ‘Acte’, and from 2018, as ‘Les Perrières’. The 2019 is 59% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), and 41% Merlot.

Les Champs Libres
The white partner to Les Perrières, from the 2019 vintage also labelled in the style of Château Lafleur (and no white is produced at Château Lafleur itself). Julie and Baptiste debuted this with the 2013 vintage as ‘a true reflection of the philosophy of Lafleur', but in the context of a white wine. It is often pure sauvignon blanc from Sancerre cuttings, sometimes supported by a small quantity of sémillon, produced on the clay-limestone soils of the Louima plateau, where it finds a great new voice. We are big fans of this wine at The Fine Wine Experience, and you will see on our list 6 vintages available – almost a complete vertical.

Château Grand Village (Red)
Founded in 1650 by Jacques Verdery, the Guinaudeau family’s ancestor, it is the ‘birthplace’ of this family of vignerons. It is a ‘harmonious and rich wine, centred around an elegant thread of tannins.’ From clay-limestone rich soils, the wine has evolved into the ‘Grand Village of Lafleur’. It offers terrific quality and value for money. 2019 blend: 81% Merlot, 19% Bouchet (Cabernet Franc)

Château Grand Village (White)
The Guinaudeau family debuted this with the 1990 vintage as the white counterpart and expression of the clay-limestone soils of Grand Village, offering equally superb quality and value for money. 2019 blend: 74% Sauvginon, 26% Sémillon