A rich, powerful wine, the 2020 Léoville Poyferré offers up aromas of sweet berries, blueberry liqueur, exotic spices, incense and creamy new oak. Full-bodied, broad and layered, it's deep and concentrated, its ample core of fruit only partially concealing a hefty payload of sweet, powdery, generously extracted tannin. Poyferré is generally the most flamboyant and demonstrative of the three Léovilles, but in 2020, it's chunkier, broader shouldered and more brooding than usual.

With some 80 hectares under vine, Léoville Poyferré's parcels are interfingered with those belonging to the Delon and Barton families by the river and on the plateau of Saint-Julien. The soils are cultivated less frequently and less deeply these days, and conversion to organic methods is gradually being rolled out, parcel by parcel, some being easier to farm this way than others. Winemaking features a five- to eight-day cold soak, followed by comparatively long macerations, and maturation is in 80% new oak, with lots destined for new barrels completing their malolactic fermentation in barrel. Combined with an elevated percentage of Merlot in the vineyards (though the tendency here, as elsewhere, is to replant with more Cabernet Sauvignon), this has tended to deliver the richest, fleshiest, most flamboyant of the three Léoville estates, but while it's generally the most open out of the gates of the three, that hasn't come at the expense of longevity.

RP 94/100

Drink Date:2030 - 2050