Château Léoville-Poyferré: Tasting & Drinking
Putting aside all the second-wine label confusion and focusing solely on the grand vin, Château Léoville-Poyferré is an estate which has shown dramatic improvements over the last three decades. The wines have an increasingly distinct style, in earlier vintages richer and more open, perhaps, although still quite classically St Julien, quite classically Bordeaux, but in more recent vintages also very structured, tannic, serious, joyous, plush and yet cerebral too. The renaissance first became apparent during the early 1980s, but for me 1996 marked the most significant turning point, the first tangible evidence of real change.
Today the wines show a defined and yet seductive nature which they did not possess before, a feature surely attributable to the dedication and commitment of Didier Cuvelier and then Sara Lecompte-Cuvelier and the team, and perhaps also the continued consultation from the late Michel Rolland (1947 – 2026), and in more recent times by his protégé at Laboratoire Rolland & Associés, Julien Viaud. The wines show increasingly committed levels of colour and structure, and in some vintages during the first two decades of the 21st century the extraction seemed to me to go too far, with the wines showing a wall of tannin in their youth. Of course, with time these wines developed more harmony, as the tannins softened and integrated. And in more recent vintages this has become less of a feature of the wines, youthful samples showing confident structure but also texture and freshness in balance. Suffice to say, over the last three decades, we have seen the estate grow from under-performing to second-growth superstar, and the wines made here today are the strongest ever seen here.
Looking first to the 1996 vintage, as this was a significant turning point for the estate, this is an excellent wine which I last encountered more than a decade ago. I really should have bought the case that a Nantwich-based wine merchant offered to me for just a few-hundred quid, back in the days when a case meant twelve bottles, and long before Winedoctor was even launched. Well, I guess we all have our tales of ‘the one that got away’. These days, that money wouldn’t stretch to two bottles of that particular vintage. Strong vintages were otherwise not a feature of the 1990s, although the 1998 showed quite well in youth, and even the 1999 was decent. From 2000 onwards, though, there were some really great wines produced here, with a fine 2003 even if it shows the bold style of the vintage, a remarkably good 2004, a tip-top 2005, excellent 2006 and a very strong 2008; I can still remember tasting the latter vintage with the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux in London, when it was a young wine (I was younger too!), and it was one of just two wines – the other being Pichon Baron – that seemed to completely transcend the limitations of the vintage. Chapeau!
Then what? More great vintages, with stunning results in 2009 and 2010, fine efforts in 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2015. Over the past decade the golden age continues, with brilliant results in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2025. Many intervening vintages also have merit, among them 2017 and 2023. Heavens, even the 2013 was drinkable. That, more than great success in warm and dry vintages, is testament to the efforts here, and the improvement in quality in recent times.
My notes below include some older vintages, and while the 1961 was good, I enjoyed the 1982 more, and always had a soft spot for the 1985 vintage. But this is not really a story of triumphs in ancient times. It is one of rebirth and renaissance. Château Léoville-Poyferré is clearly no longer the outlier of the Léoville family; this view is outdated and belongs in the early 1990s. The estate now operates on an equal footing with Château Léoville-Las-Cases and Château Léoville-Barton. They all have different styles, of course, one a first-growth pretender, the other wonderfully traditional and consistent, both styles contrasting with the more seductive nature of the 21st-century Château Léoville-Poyferré, but in terms of absolute quality it is only fair to say that this estate has returned to the deuxième cru classé fold. (15/1/03, updated 9/2/07, 17/6/09, 20/5/16, 8/7/18, 15/8/20, 7/9/26)
