Chateau Lafleur: An Overview

Chateau Lafleur occupies 4.5 ha on the famed Pomerol plateau alongside such famed vineyards as Petrus and L'Evangile. The vineyard was purchased in 1872 by Henri Greloud, the great-great grandfather of the current owners Sylvie and Jacques Guinaudeau who took sole ownership of the property in 2002.

Location of Chateau Lafleur in Pomerol AOC
(Source: pillariwine.com.hk)

Location of Chateau Lafleur in relation to neighboring wineries

According to Baptiste and Julie Guinaudeau (son and daughter-in-law of the owners), the complexity of the Lafleur wines are directly attributable to the complexity of the soils and the vines planted on those soils.

The soil composition is as follows:

• Gravelly sandy-clay in the northeast -- 1.4 ha (3.4 acres)
• Gravelly clay to the south and east -- 1.5 ha (3.7 acres)
• Sandy-gravelly soil at the heart of the vineyard -- 0.95 ha (2.34 acres)
• Gravelly-clayey sand -- a 0.8 ha (1.97 acres) diagonal cross-cutting the vineyard and the site for the grapes making the Pensées de Lafleur wine (second wine until it became a cru in its own right in the early 2000s)

"This very rare association of soils allows us to explain in part the singularity of Lafleur" (Baptiste and Julie).

Moueix, the exclusive distributor of the Lafleur wines, describes this as an incredibly complex terroir with "a veritable patchwork of soils and subsoils of different gravels, loess and clays marked by an iron-rich sublayer." Further, the parcels dedicated to Pensées de Lafleur are "sandier on the surface and less gravelly than the parcels intended for Lafleur. The subsoil is deeper and richer with an important presence of ferric clay."

A map of the vineyard soils is presented below.

Lafleur soils map (Source: handout at
12/4/17 Lafleur tasting)

The second key to wine quality is the vines planted on the estate: 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Merlot. "The priceless genetic heritage of this vineyard at Lafleur, above all our old vine Cabernet Franc, should be duly noted" (Baptiste and Julie). A part of the vineyard is a result of massale selection activity carried out in the 1930s.

A total of 21,000 vines are planted on the estate: 7,500 on gravel with clay; 5,250 on gravel with sand; and 8,250 on clay and gravel soil. Vine density ranges between 6000 and 7500 vines/ha.

All vineyard activities are carried out by hand to include tilling, pruning, and harvesting. Pruning and de-budding are tailored to the age and shape of each vine while hedging, leaf-thinning, and crop-thinning are driven by the climatic conditions of each vintage. No chemical herbicides are used on the estate.

Harvest dates are determined on a parcel-by-parcel basis with Pensées de Lafleur fruit generally harvested last. The grapes are harvested by hand with selection in the vineyard and, following, at the sorting table in harvest-reception. Maceration periods are determined by the characteristics of the vintage.

The wines are racked into barrels immediately after fermentation and remain there for 18 months before they are bottled. The wines are racked every three months during the aging process.

©Wine -- Mise en abyme