Château La Gaffelière, 2025 - Magnum
Château La Gaffelière, 2025 - Magnum
- 150cl
- 13.5%
- Red Still
- Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon
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 22 hectares occupy prime south-facing slopes at the foot of Saint-Émilion village, planted on the famous limestone plateau that defines the appellation's finest wines. The thin topsoil over hard limestone bedrock forces vines to dig deep, creating wines with distinctive mineral tension and natural acidity. The limestone's excellent drainage and heat retention properties help achieve optimal ripeness whilst preserving the freshness that makes these wines so food-friendly and age-worthy.
Saint-Émilion Premier Grand Cru Classé represents the pinnacle of Right Bank winemaking, with estates ranked according to a classification system unique in Bordeaux for being regularly reviewed. The appellation favours Merlot over Cabernet Sauvignon, creating wines that are generally more approachable in youth than their Left Bank counterparts whilst offering comparable longevity. Saint-Émilion's limestone and clay soils produce wines with a distinctive mineral backbone that sets them apart from the gravel-based wines of the Médoc.
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.
OUR GROWERS
Château La Gaffelière
