Château Lafleur 2025 comes from one of Pomerol’s smallest benchmark estates: about 4.5 hectares on the Pomerol plateau, with production often cited around 1,000 cases. The 2025 is also a turning-point release, bottled not as Pomerol AOC but as Vin de France. Multiple reviewers note this follows the estate’s decision to use “unauthorised irrigation” in the vintage (Winedoctor) and, as Neal Martin writes in *Vinous*, the change came “after water was added to the soil, contravening Pomerol’s AC rules.”
In the glass, the critical consensus is clear: this is a high-performing Lafleur built on perfume, precision, and persistence. Robert Parker’s *Wine Advocate* calls it “generous and expressive,” with “sweet cherries and raspberries” alongside “licorice, anise and violets,” finishing with “plenty of sweet, powdery tannin” and “everything in abundance” (98). Jane Anson rates it 98 and emphasizes its aromatic detail—“iris, peony… slate and crayon, saffron, grilled cumin, oyster shell”—while noting 33% new oak and harvest dates from August 26 to September 12.
Several reviews are outright excellent. James Suckling awards 99, praising a “cool and perfectly integrated wine… so perfumed and dense yet weightless,” with an “endless finish,” and cites the blend at 51% Cabernet Franc and 49% Merlot. Jeb Dunnuck also goes to 99, describing a “powerful, inward… discrete and classy” wine with “remarkable length” and “polished tannins,” again around a 49/51 split (Merlot/Bouchet-Cabernet Franc).
Top-of-the-scale appraisals come from The Wine Palate and *The Drinks Business*, both publishing 98–100 point notes. The Wine Palate highlights a wine that starts “closed,” then builds to an “iron fist in a velvet glove… finishing very long, perfumed, and graceful.” *Decanter* (97) summarizes the style as “serious, knitted, dark and finely tuned,” with “nothing… heavy,” and reports a 35 hl/ha yield; Winedoctor adds 14% alcohol. Overall, Lafleur 2025 looks set to reward patience, while offering uncommon aromatic lift and structural drive for the vintage.
