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A LEGEND CALLED LAFLEUR

BRUCE PALLING | UNCORKED | November 9th 2007

Jacques and Sylvie Guinaudeau | John Armit

Bruce declares the meaning of life to lie buried in ten acres of Pomerol soil, where Chateau Lafleur produces a wine of stupendous style and price, so rare that even the owners (above) no longer have a complete run of vintages ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

How does one go about being a good godparent, or, for that matter, godchild? The starting point is usually friendship between the parents, as the newly born child in question will probably not offer more than goos, gurgles and grunts. Or, more likely, cries and wails. However, you will have at least the illusion of anticipating how the child may evolve in time, which, given the ongoing track record of its parents, may be a cause for alarm as well as celebration.

There may well be tricky moments or patches, but ideally, suddenly at the age of majority, there will be a well-formed person who has benefited from the relationship. In my own case, my sole godparent was a namesake uncle whom I met only two or three times. He was the last person I knew to use the word "bally"--and always to travel with a Gladstone Bag.

Is it too simplistic to transfer these familial thoughts to the evolution of great wines? Again, there may be only glimpses of its development when you actually open a bottle that is not ready, but there is always hearsay and gossip from other devotees to give you useful clues. With a tiny handful of great wines, they too can be "dumb" in youth or "closed up", only to suddenly emerge from their chrysalis in time to surprise everyone, including their parents.

There are plenty of surprises when it comes to Chateau Lafleur, arguably the rarest grand Bordeaux of them all. A Pomerol, its ten acres are located right across a dirt track from Chateau Petrus, the great wine sadly beloved of pleb celebs and chav Slavs the world over. If you were to mention to someone serious about wine that you had just uncovered a magnum of Lafleur '47 under the coal scuttle, chances are that you would need to slap a platoon of Ghurkhas on the edge of your manor.

In a typical vintage (there is never an "average" one), around 1,000 cases will be produced from this sacred plot with perhaps a further 250 cases downgraded to become the Second Wine, Pensées de Lafleur. Great vintages, such as the 1982, sell for more than £3,000 a bottle. The last time I tasted it was at the Tate Modern in 2001, at a dinner organised by John Armit for Christian Moueix, the owner of Petrus. Only someone with supreme confidence--and generosity--would serve such a wine in the same room as his own masterpieces. Moueix actually made the '82 vintage in a complicated interim agreement, so perhaps he wasn't so upset when it was declared wine of the night, overwhelming other 100-point legends like '89 Petrus and '86 Mouton. The Lafleur '82 was so extraordinary that Armit quickly passed out a message to his staff to purchase every single case left on the world market, which they did the next day. It may have been extraordinarily expensive then at £8,000 a case but now you can't find it for three times that amount.

Until the early 1980s it was owned by two elderly spinsters who were straight out of a Lil' Abner cartoon. The wine was stored in barnyard conditions, in a space shared with rabbits, chickens and ducks. Perhaps it is no surprise then, that occasionally some of the older vintages were flawed by what were politely termed "faecal aromas". Lafleur is utterly traditional and artisanal in its creation, but never rustic. It is the antithesis of the modern over-extracted fruit-bomb style of wine so beloved of the modernists. Robert Parker may well be seen as the spokesman for admirers of that style, but he completely understands Lafleur and is fulsome in his praise.

The vineyard ("chateau" would be stretching it a bit) is now run by Jacques and Sylvie Guinaudeau (pictured above), the spinster-sisters' nephew and niece, who came to London ahead of a major sale of their wines at Christie's (15th November). With his straggly white moustache and collarless shirt, he could easily pass for an American-Gothic Midwesterner standing with his pitchfork on some hardscrabble acreage. His wife has the air of a kindly primary teacher from rural France.

For a lucky few, there was a masterclass at Christie's of most of their vintages since they assumed control in 1985. Even more exciting, all of the wines were in magnums that had been stored in now clean cellars. I should explain that after exhausting but hardly onerous testing of how great wines evolve in different-shaped bottles, the magnum remains the ideal format for serious ageing.

This event was so special that I spotted not only their own UK agent (John Armit) in the audience, but also the head of Corney and Barrow, all the leading UK wine writers and even the boss of Chateau Latour. Others had jetted in from around the globe for such a special event. There was not a Russian to be seen, but I have no doubt it will soon become a wine of choice in Moscow and Gstaad because of its rarity and prestige value. I am not sure what the Guinaudeaux made of the venue, as the tasting took place surrounded by contemporary photographs about to go for auction. On one side there was a giant shot of Keith Richards undergoing some sort of bondage, while on the other a naked model posed on a waterfront clutching a fishing rod.

But Mrs Lincoln, what about the play? Lafleur is perhaps the most distinctive of all the great Bordeaux. This is because, although it shares some similar dirt with Petrus, it is planted with equal amounts of Merlot and of Cabernet Franc, the most complex and exotic grape variety in the region. Whereas most great Pomerols and St Emilions are dominated by the fleshy and obvious delights of the Merlot grape, only a few, such as Cheval Blanc, Ausone, Angelus and Vieux Chateau Certan highlight Cabernet Franc. It could never be mistaken for a Petrus, and it has more in common with Ausone despite its being a St Emilion.

I don't quite know how to describe Cabernet Franc except that it is very minerally, spicy, slightly steely and austere compared with Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon. Cynics say it is a bit like sucking a stone but for me, it is the equivalent of drinking a red Chablis, which isn't very helpful because it doesn't exist.

These are not easy wines to taste, as to show their stuff they should ideally be voting age or more. The tasting was arranged in three groups, or "flights" as wine people call them. The first were Pensées de Lafleur 2000, the second wine of Lafleur 2000, which was also shown, along with the '99 and '01. We were instructed to taste the '99 first as it had less obvious tannin. The rim of the wine reminded me of the borderline of a Rothko--slightly diffuse and imprecise as to where the boundary is. The taste wasn't exactly subtle: it takes you by the arm and declares, "This is where I am going", regardless of what you might want to do. The '01 was a far more harmonious affair (and by informal consent, was the "bargain" of the night as it is only £300 a bottle). As for the 2000, I confess that it brings tears to my eyes just recalling it. It had a rather mucky, barnyard nose but the grace and harmony wafted you along into a very special private world of flavours you don't encounter more than a few occasions in a life time. OK, it's nearly two grand a bottle and won't really be ready until Chelsea Clinton is president, but this is why Lafleur is the only Pomerol to rival and sometimes surpass Petrus. The Pensées '00 was the best they have so far produced, though some are holding higher hopes for their '05, which has yet to be bottled.

After that, the '98 was surprisingly compact, given the general acclaim of this vintage on the Right Bank (home of Pomerol and St Emilion). At this point, an assertive young taster in the audience said that the 98 should have been greater, followed by the priceless comment, "I detect some forest-floor aromas here". In their humility, the Guinaudeaux agreed the '98 should have been better, but we are talking here of whether it is truly great or merely outstanding. The '96 we had was ever so slightly corked, which was devastating for all concerned. The '95 was awesome and potentially great; it still needs five or more years to shed off some of the powerful tannins.

By chance (or perhaps not in this rarefied world), when I dropped in the following day to meet the sommelier at Alain Ducasse's about-to-be opened restaurant at the Dorchester, he had just had a visit from the Guinaudeaux. They had left behind the remnants of three of their bottles for him to taste. (I adore the fact that Lafleur is so precious that they pass off their dregs to Ducasse--and he is grateful!) He poured me another glass of the '95, which, after a day's oxidisation, suddenly tasted like the most overwhelmingly powerful mineral fruit cake in existence.

But back to the tasting. There were only three more on offer--the '89, the '88 and the '86, as, sadly, the '85, which is another legend, has all but disappeared, to the point that there is none left at the chateau itself. The '89 was more than 14%, with almost roasted fruit--not typical, but still extraordinary. The '88 was a triumph for the vintage--racy and with great assurance; the '86 was slightly creamy, with flat tannins, and with at least a decade's more life in it. That is the extraordinary thing about tasting such wines: how fresh the fruit remains and the sense that they can simply go on for decades, which is rare indeed in today's Bordeaux market.

After this memorable two-hour session, I chatted to the Guinaudeaus, who said they can only now leave their precious vineyard because their son Baptiste remains home to keep an eye on things. They were happy to give out their card and invite me to visit, as they especially enjoy welcoming amateurs. What struck me was that, though they own one of the most precious plots of land on earth, worth tens of millions to an oligarch or corporate raider, their card does not even mention the word Lafleur, just the relatively simple other wine they make, Grand Village.

Sadly I am too old to qualify for new godparents, even though Uncle Bruce did depart recently in his nineties. He would not have approved, but I have sunk his modest inheritance into a few cases of Lafleur, and pray I have the discipline to consume them and so profit in other ways far more valuable than the acquisition of capital.