A New New Normal for Lafleur

As reported in 2025 Bordeaux at a Glance, one of the hot topics of gossip in Bordeaux this year centred around Lafleur, their use of water in the vineyard and subsequent departure from the official appellation. Prior to the release of their 2025s – Vin de France on the labels of some Bordeaux’s finest wines – I wanted to unpack some of the news here and read between the lines, so we can get back to focusing on the wines and filter out the white noise of the gossip.

What’s the context?

Vinum first became Singapore’s Ambassador for the Guinaudeau family – owners of Pomerol’s Chateau Lafleur – with the 2019 vintage. Ever since that first visit to taste, we have heard about the ‘new normal’ climate experienced in the vineyards. Climate change has imposed a new normal on Bordeaux.

If you strip away the vagaries of individual years – frost in 2017, heat in 2022, wet and cool in 2024 – then you can see that the underlying shift has been in the weather getting warmer earlier in the year. The impact has been to bring the vines’ growth cycle forward so the fruit production process both begins and finishes earlier than was the case 20 years ago.

After the more Atlantic weather of 2024, 2025 doubled down on a Mediterranean style with almost three months of drought. In combination with spiking temperatures, setting record highs, pressure on the vines hit a critical pinch point.

This was little surprise to the Guinaudeaus, who are amongst the most considered and intentional wine growers we know. They had already identified water stress, degrading the vitality and biomass of their vineyard soils, as the gravest climatic risk factor. For the free draining gravels of Lafleur itself, this is particularly true, but the risk extends to all their properties. Even more specifically, it is not a generalised issue of lack of available water, but of reduced access to water during key points during the plants’ annual growth cycle.

What actually happened?

• To relieve drought pressure and revive the soil, water was applied to the Lafleur vineyard.
• As appellation rules prohibit irrigation of any kind, the family withdrew their wines from the system. Instead of being labelled as Pomerol, Lafleur is now Vin de France.
• Because French bureaucracy is the gift that keeps on giving, the declassification of Lafleur and Grand Village meant they had to drop the Chateau designation from their titles.

The above are the headlines. As usual, and especially in a Bordeaux where ‘precision’ is the current watchword, it is the detail that is crucial.

If you read Neal Martin’s report Baptiste Guinaudeau is quoted as commenting, “Irrigation is bad.” This is not a man who turned the tap on in his precious vineyard and, if you visit, there are no irrigation lines amongst the plants. Irrigation trials began in 2012 and the team had already determined their preferred method of efficiently and effectively providing water to their vineyards.

Specially adapted tractors injected measured amounts of water into the soil, at a depth of 10-15cm, between the vines. The team talk about this as correcting the soil’s water content, or as recharging the soil with water, and we are encouraged to think about this as distinct from irrigation.

It is important that water is delivered into the soil, rather than directly to the vine, and to note the small volumes being used. Whilst not entirely a homeopathic quantity, the team applied a maximum of 50 litres of water per square metre; the equivalent of 50mm of rainfall. To give this more context, in 2025, Bordeaux saw 364mm of rain, whereas in 2024 the same period received 649mm.

As mentioned above, the timing of the water addition is of the utmost importance. Conditions in June determine a crop’s eventual berry weight and, in 2025, water stress in June would have led to berries with an average weight below 1 gram. This would have fallen below the threshold at which Baptiste Guinaudeau believes it possible to produce high quality wine, as the high ratio of skin to juice would have resulted in dry tannins. It was therefore in June that the team felt forced to act and recharge Lafleur’s soils to save the crop.

It is perhaps a little-known fact that the authorities can grant emergency exemptions to the irrigation ban within French wine appellations. Such a derogation was announced toward the end of August 2025 but, so close to harvest, it was past the point of no return for meaningful irrigation to manage fruit quality.

Finally, it is important to consider the source of water used in the vineyards. From a purist wine quality perspective, you might question the use of ‘foreign’ or external water in a terroir product. From a moral perspective, there are very real issues around using a scarce resource like water in the production of luxury wine.

In a letter sent late last Summer, Baptiste was adamant that any irrigation water must not be drawn from the public networks. Anticipating the direction in which climate change was driving viticulture, the family acquired a small property next to the Gironde river, on the flood plain. They dug a small reservoir, which fills when the river is in flood, and this provides the water for the vines.

And this means what, precisely? What’s the upshot?

Administratively, some of the wines have changed their titles and each of the six Crus is now designated Vin de France. Practically, almost nothing has changed. Water correction is merely another tool in the vineyard manager’s toolbox employed in pursuit of the unchanged goals of wine quality and terroir expression.

The wines are made in the same vineyards, in the same locations, by the same people. Baptiste and his team have spoken about “changing to remain the same.” The last line of Neal Martin’s 97-99pt review of Lafleur reads: “This is a great Lafleur, irrespective of what it took to get there.”

New normal is a useful phrase in this situation. The Lafleur team are certainly breaking new ground in their use of vineyard hydration, and the wines are going down a new pathway outside of the traditional appellation system. However, it is important to remember that the goal is something akin to business as usual in terms of what eventually reaches your glass. The relentless pursuit of quality is normal chez Guinaudeau; on that basis, we may as well all move along and talk about the amazing wines as there’s nothing new to see here.

The new new normal range of Guinaudeau family wines:

• Les Rouges
• Lafleur – Vin de France
• Les Pensees – Vin de France
• Les Perrieres – Vin de France
• Le Grand Village – Vin de France
• Les Blancs
• Les Champs Libres – Vin de France
• Le Grand Village blanc – Vin de France