1975 Château Lafleur

Tasted at the Pomerol Comparative Exploration tasting in London, the 1975 Lafleur is a wine that I have only encountered once back in 2004. This rare bottle hails from the last few years of Lafleur under the aegis of Marie and Thérèse Robin. It sported a deeply coloured core with some bricking on the rim. The nose is beguiling: black truffles, decayed autumn leaves, loam and touches of meat juices. It is rustic for certain, but quite profound and intoxicating. The palate is masculine and still structured after four decades. It is old school from start to finish, a heavyweight bruiser that feels drier than the 1978 Lafleur, but perhaps has more weight if not quite the length of other vintages I have tasted. This must have been a formidable wine in its youth, though perhaps now it is just beginning to become a little frayed at the seams towards the finish. It might lack grace and perhaps now it has been overtaken by Petrus and Trotanoy. Yet this is a beguiling Pomerol, one that they just don't make any more.

Very luscious healthy shaded blackish ruby with brick rim. But on the nose this seems a bit faded and lacks freshness. An old lady’s boudoir – or am I being so fanciful because Michael Broadbent is sitting almost next to me? Bloody and big and fruity and powerful and lots of impact with rather furry tannins on the finish. Long and neat and gives lots of pleasure. Mint toffees on the nose and tough, chewy, grainy tannins. Tannins will not meld more, I feel. This became increasingly attractively fresh and floral on the nose as it sat in the glass (JR)

At one time a perfect wine, my three-digit score has dropped simply because I am not sure the huge tannins this wine possesses will ever fully melt away. Nevertheless, it is still one of the greatest wines I have ever tasted for its tremendous singularity and intensity. The color is still a murky plum/purple that shows a bit of amber at the edge. The nose is strikingly intense, with an almost liquid minerality intermixed with fig, truffle, spice, plum, and black cherry as well as blueberry. In the mouth the wine is massive, with searing levels of tannins, but monumental levels of extract and concentration. I would not be surprised if some of the great 1928s or 1945s tasted like this in their first 20 years of life. This wine is still very backward, yet with decanting of 6-10 hours (the normal operative procedure when opening this wine), the wine is prodigious. A 50 to 75-year wine? Anticipated maturity: 2005-2050. Last tasted, 8/02.