2012 - Leoville Poyferre, Saint-Julien

The 2012 Leoville Poyferre is medium to deep garnet colored. It features notes of cassis, blackberry preserves, and prunes with touches of fallen leaves, cedar chest, lavender, and pencil lead. Medium-bodied, the palate is firm and grainy, with plenty of black fruit preserves in the mid-palate and a long finish with loads of mineral sparks. It needs time!

Poyferré keeps its generous spirit at 10 years old and has a lovely rich body with raspberry coulis, blackberry and density through the mid palate. The oak majors on grilled cedar and almond, a little dominant and closes things down on the close of play, not quite smoothed out yet suggesting that although you can begin drinking now, it will benefit from another few years in bottle. Harvest October 8 to 19. 80% new oak.

The 2012 Léoville-Poyferré has quite an atypical strict bouquet with blackberry, melted tar, graphite and crushed stone aromas. This opens very nicely in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with grippy notes on the entry, fairly saline with good tension, superb backbone and density on the finish. This is very promising, but it may require more bottle age just to smooth out its edges. Tasted twice at Bordeaux Index's Ten Year-On tasting and blind at the Southwold Ten-Year On tasting.

Owned by the Cuvelier family since 1920, this property over the last 20 years has made some great wines in the Médoc. The 2012, a blend of 61% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot and 4% Cabernet Franc, is opaque purple, thick-looking, and from bottle much more impressive than it was from barrel. This very extracted, rich, full-bodied, masculine Léoville Poyferré needs a good 5-8 years of bottle age and should evolve well for at least 20-25 years. Loads of blackberry and cassis, crushed rock and graphite notes are present in this medium to full-bodied, impressively concentrated and pure wine. Forget it for a while, as this is one of the bigger, richer Médocs.

Tasted blind. Very deep crimson. Intense nose and very smooth texture. Quite a standout! Lots going on there and a really exciting finish. GV (JR)