Château La Gaffelière, 2025
Château La Gaffelière, 2025
- 75cl
- 14%
- Red Still
- Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc
Please note, en primeur wines are not available for delivery until they arrive in the UK
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Est. delivery in 2028
Château La Gaffelière sits on the prime limestone slopes of Saint-Émilion, where the Malet-Roquefort family has crafted wines of remarkable elegance since the 17th century. This Right Bank estate specialises in Merlot-based blends that capture the limestone terroir's distinctive mineral freshness whilst maintaining the plush fruit Saint-Émilion is loved for.
What the critics say:
"The 2025 La Gaffelière soars out of the glass with magnificent intensity. Strong Cabernet Franc overtones and bright saline notes from the clay-limestone plateau are finely sketched with tremendous precision. The 2025 bristles with tension from start to finish. It's a phenomenal wine by any measure. Tasted two times."
"Thoroughly enjoyable, iris, juicy bilberry, loganberry, blackcurrant, rich, juicy and measured, has the fingerprint of limestone without being sharp. Clearly will age well, already totally delicious. 3.42 pH. Harvest September 12 to 22. 50% new oak."
La Gaffelière's vineyards occupy a privileged position on Saint-Émilion's limestone plateau and south-facing slopes, with soils of clay-limestone over a bedrock of Saint-Émilion limestone. The elevation provides excellent drainage whilst the limestone subsoil imparts the wine's distinctive mineral backbone. The south-facing exposure ensures optimal ripening of Merlot, whilst the cooler limestone keeps the wines fresh and age-worthy. This terroir produces wines of exceptional elegance and longevity.
Saint-Émilion, located on Bordeaux's Right Bank, is renowned for its Merlot-based wines that contrast beautifully with the Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant Left Bank. The appellation's classification system, revised every decade, recognises Château La Gaffelière as a Premier Grand Cru Classé. Unlike the Médoc, Saint-Émilion's limestone and clay soils favour Merlot and Cabernet Franc, producing wines of greater immediate charm but equal ageing potential. The appellation's compact size belies the diversity of its terroirs, from the limestone plateau to the sandy plains.
The 2025 Bordeaux vintage emerged from one of the most demanding growing seasons in recent memory — the earliest budbreak since 1989, June temperatures second only to 2003 since records began, and an unusually early harvest beginning in August for the whites. Conditions that should have produced heavy, overripe wines. They didn't. Decanter's Georgie Hindle, who tasted close to 200 wines ahead of the formal campaign, describes "exceptional concentration, aromatic purity and a freshness that contradicts the record-breaking heat.
The early critical consensus places 2025 stylistically between the precision of 2020 and the structure of 2016, with the brightness of 2023 — a combination that suggests a very serious vintage indeed. Yields are dramatically low, the smallest crop since 1991, with production across the Gironde running around 15% below the five-year average. The quality is here. There simply isn't very much of it.
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Château La Gaffelière
