2021 Les Pensees

Stunning stuff, the 2021 Château Lafleur Les Pensées has the classic Pomerol sexiness and opulence that defines the vintage. Redcurrants, ripe red fruit, spice, chocolate, and a beautiful sense of minerality and earth all define the aromatics, and it's medium-bodied, with round, supple tannins, beautiful purity, and a gorgeous finish. It's the second wine of this estate but as good as just about every Grand Vin out there.

The 2021 Les Pensées, from the clay soils within Lafleur, has much more red fruit on the nose compared to the Perrières, still finely delineated with hints of graphite and pencil shavings infusing the fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-boned tannins, beautifully balanced, gently building in the mouth toward a finish that has impressive sapidity and cohesion. Long and tender, this is an outstanding articulation of its terroir in a more challenging, "non-solar" vintage. You could broach this in a year or two, though personally, I prefer to wait.

The 2021 Les Pensées de Lafleur is a very pretty wine. Strong floral and spice notes give the Pensées tons of charm. Silky tannins reinforce a feeling of finesse that further adds to its immediacy and appeal. Succulent red cherry fruit, red plum, orange peel, cinnamon and cedar open with time in the glass. Bright acids reappear on the finish to round things out. More than anything else, it is the wine's balance that is most impressive. What a charmer.