2022 Releases: Chateau Lafleur & the Guinaudeau Family Collection

If Bordeaux’s right bank is the sweet spot in 2022 – and it is! – then the Guinaudeau family wines sit at ground zero for quality.  Old vines, that pre-date modern clones and have never seen chemical treatments, combined with visionary farming and inspired winemaking have resulted in some of 2022s most exciting wines.  As ambassadors for the Guinaudeau family wines in Singapore, we are delighted to make our opening offer of these astonishing 2022s that count amongst the highest points of the vintage.

The good news is that quality is not restricted to the top wine chez Guinaudeau this year.  Baptiste and his team have crafted a brooding, epic Chateau Lafleur that will surely become one of the reference point vintages for this iconic vineyard.  They have also made the finest Les Perrieres to date – a wine that is coming of age and establishing its credentials as ‘Lafleur on limestone’ and whose 94-96pts from William Kelley puts it on a par with Pomerol royalty.  Whether or not the 2022 is the best-ever Chateau Grand Village it is too early to say but it is certainly the finest I have ever tasted en primeur.  I rated this 91-93pts and struggle to see why any wine lover would not want to add a 6-pack to their en primeur order, Grand Village continues to defy its appellation and price point and those who put cases into their cellars are the winners!

In a vintage that was challenging for the majority of white wine producers, both Grand Village blanc and Les Champs Libres have excelled themselves.  Grown high on the Fronsac plateau, in cool limestone soils and at a remove from the more classic estates of Pessac Leognan, these are chiselled, complex and textural whites.  Omri Ram believes the 2022s are the finest whites the family has produced to date.  The bad news is that the production of white grapes was decimated by the challenges of 2022.  It was one of the lowest-yielding vintages ever and, sadly, our allocation is too small to allow for an en primeur offer of Chateau Grand Village blanc or Les Champs Libres 2022.  We may be able to offer, by the bottle, once the physical stock has landed in Singapore and we have a tiny stock of bottled vintages in our cellars – please contact your account manager if you would like to receive an offer.

The challenges of reduced production also extend to Les Pensees in 2022.  Produced from a strip of clay-based soil, in the midst of Lafleur’s gravel-dominated vineyard, slightly less than 0.7-hectares of vines contribute to Les Pensees so it is always a rare cru.  The most classically Pomerol wine of the Guinaudeau family, the 2022 shows the richness and opulence of the vintage in a display of controlled flamboyance.  However, production is down by around 25%, with only 3,000 or so bottles produced, so we are unable to offer this wine en primeur this year.  Following the family’s direction, we always work to allocate back vintages of Les Pensees to restaurant clients – if you want to learn where to drink rare, older bottles in Singapore please get in touch.

Chateau Lafleur, Les Perrieres and Chateau Grand Village 2022 form the most thrilling and stylistically coherent collection of wines we tasted from 2022.  Each cru expresses its unique terroir yet shot through with a common DNA, speaking with a similar accent that is doubtless born of the old vine genetics of Lafleurs Bouchet (Cabernet Franc), which is now planted in each of the crus.  These wines will deservedly be over-subscribed, and subject to allocation, and we do not anticipate being able to allocate more than single cases of Lafleur or Perrieres per order. 

Please let us know your interest in these exceptional 2022s from the Guinaudeau family – wines to treasure in the cellar and which promise to thrill and delight in the glass for many years.

The Offer:

Offered subject to allocation. Available in 2024/2025.

2022 Chateau Lafleur
@ SGD $3,075 per case of 3 OWC (inc GST $3,321)
*Limited to 1 case per person*
The 2022 Lafleur was picked from 3 September with the early Merlot and then over the next two weeks. It underwent double sorting in the vineyard and then at reception, aged in 25% new oak. This is bestowed a compelling bouquet, a mixture of red and black fruit, iodine and incense, beautifully defined, maybe more sensual than recent vintages. The palate is blessed with unerring symmetry, a fine thread of acidity, a graphite seam from start to finish and a constant sapidity. Extremely precise and ineffably persistent, this is an intellectual and delicious Lafleur – a lethal combination. Among the best that Baptiste and Julie Guinaudeau have conjured in recent years and that’s a very impressive canon of work.
97/99 pts Neal Martin

51% Bouchet; 49% Merlot.  Resolutely backward and introverted.  In 2022 Lafleur is a brooding titan of huge scale and drama.  Extremely tightly coiled and primary.  You sense the length and energy but very little beyond these tactile sensations.  Mineral and tensile tannins.  With air, some violets and Bouchet spice start to emerge.  For those with lots of patience and deep cellars but promises to rank amongst the iconic vintages of Lafleur – epic!
96/98 pts Matthew Hemming MW

2022 Les Perrieres de Lafleur
@ SGD $310 per case of 3 OWC (inc GST $334.80)
*Limited to 1 case per person*
The 2022 Les Perrières de Lafleur shows just how adapted this higher-altitude site on the plateau of Fronsac is to warmer vintages. Wafting from the glass with aromas of mulberries and raspberries, sweet spices and rose petals, it’s medium to full-bodied, deep and layered, with racy acids and a taut, mineral profile. It’s another brilliant effort from this visionary project.
94/96 pts William Kelley

50/50 Bouchet and Merlot but the Bouchet dominates the nose with a scent that is all spice, earth and blackberries.  Some bitter chocolate tones.  The aromatic profile is quite insular at this point but palate has great tension, intensity and length.  Very tight and linear.  Extremely long, reverberating and mineral.  Has a bitterness and ferrous character – giving minerality – that is extremely savoury and almost meaty.  Primal and exciting with chiselled tannins and a statuesque structure.
94/96 pts Matthew Hemming MW

2022 Chateau Grand Village
@ SGD $180 per case of 6 OC (inc GST $194.40)
The 2022 Grand Village is a powerful, brooding wine. Swaths of tannin wrap around a core of black fruit, gravel, incense, licorice and chocolate in a potent Grand Village that overdelivers. The 2022 is a wine of notable substance and breadth. I wouldn’t dream of opening a bottle for at least a few years. The 2022 is the most intense young Grand Village I have ever tasted. There is serious potential here.
91/93 pts Antonio Galloni

Striking aromas – very floral and lifted.  Even notes of lavender and peonies.  Very juicy profile of small berries.  High definition in terns of purity and clarity.  Shows a density to match the vintage profile but MUCH fresher and more piercing than you’d anticipate.  Has a dry, saline cut and a sappy bitterness.  Builds in volume of freshly sliced fruit.
91/93 pts Matthew Hemming MW

Terms & Conditions:

Offer ends on Friday 26th May 2023 l No further discount l Immediate payment required l Delivery fees ($32.40) waived for purchases above $500 before GST excluding airports | Cancellation of orders not allowed l Order/s to be collected/delivered within 1 month upon stock availability l Offered Ex-Singapore & subject to remaining unsold