Château Laforge, 2025 - Magnum
Château Laforge, 2025 - Magnum
- 150cl
- 14.5%
- Red Still
- Merlot, 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
JCP Maltus, the Englishman behind Teyssier and Le Dôme, crafts this Saint-Émilion from carefully selected parcels on the limestone plateau. We love how he balances power with elegance, creating wines that speak clearly of their Right Bank origins while carrying his signature precision.
What the critics say:
"Deep dark ruby garnet, opaque core, violet reflections, subtle edge brightening. Delicate floral nuances, black cherries, a hint of blackberry confit, a hint of black truffle, precious wood nuances. Complex, ripe dark berry fruit, ripe tannins, mineral, fine sweetness on the finish, an elegant food companion, good ageing potential."
Château Laforge sits on Saint-Émilion's prized limestone plateau, where shallow topsoil over bedrock limestone forces vines to dig deep for nutrients. The limestone provides excellent drainage while retaining enough moisture for steady ripening, creating wines with natural freshness and mineral backbone. This terroir particularly suits Merlot, which dominates most plantings here, developing remarkable concentration and elegant structure.
Saint-Émilion represents the heart of Bordeaux's Right Bank, where Merlot reigns supreme over the limestone and clay soils. Unlike the Médoc's Cabernet Sauvignon-based blends, Saint-Émilion wines typically show more immediate charm while maintaining serious ageing potential. The appellation's complex geology creates diverse wine styles, from rich, powerful wines on the plateau to more elegant expressions from the côtes, all unified by that distinctive Saint-Émilion marriage of fruit and mineral precision.
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.
