1993 Lafleur

The 1993 Lafleur is a vintage I have not tasted for a while. This showed well with brambly black fruit, briary and touches of undergrowth, less ferrous than three or four previous bottles. The palate is tannic and a little rough-hewn, like many 1993s, although this is mellow and coheres with aeration. It's less astringent than I expected, pretty and quite tensile on the finish. Baptiste Guinaudeau opened this bottle straight from Lafleur's cellars, so the provenance is impeccable, but it is undoubtedly the best 1993 Lafleur I have tasted.

One of a small handful of contenders for the title of wine of the vintage, the 1993 Lafleur is beginning to drink brilliantly. Unfurling in the decanter and glass with aromas of sweet berry fruit, kirsch, loamy soil and black truffles, it's medium to full-bodied, muscular and concentrated, its imposing chassis of ripe but melting tannin cloaked in an ample core of thick, concentrated fruit. Uncommonly powerful for the vintage, and displaying none of 1993's tendency to asperity, it is just entering what will be a long drinking window. Held to any standards other than Lafleur's, this might well merit an even higher score, and it would be a great choice to insert into any blind tasting of more sought-after vintages.

The 1993 Lafleur can be a great vintage but this bottle suggested that its tannins might be usurping the fruit. It has a rustic, earthy, ferrous nose that feels a little jarring at first, although it gains cohesion with time. The palate is medium-bodied with coarse and gritty tannin. As I have written before, it is an uncompromising Lafleur typical of what was a tannic vintage. My main complaint is that there is more dryness and astringency on the finish than previous bottles, leading me to assume that after 24 years it is beginning its downward slope. Tasted at the “International Wine & Business” Lafleur dinner at Ten Trinity, London.