2012 Château Léoville Poyferré, St Julien, Bordeaux

2012 Château Léoville Poyferré, St Julien, Bordeaux

Product: 20128002158
Prices start from £300.00 per case Buying options
2012 Château Léoville Poyferré, St Julien, Bordeaux

Buying options

Available by the case In Bond. Pricing excludes duty and VAT, which must be paid separately before delivery. Storage charges apply.
Case format
Availability
Price per case
12 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £725.00
6 x 75cl bottle
BBX marketplace BBX 1 case £300.00
You can place a bid for this wine on BBX

Description

The harvest was so late in 2012 that, apart from 2008, you have to search through the record books by more than 30 years to find a comparable vintage. Despite these challenging conditions, the wine, which is dominated by 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, is brimming with layer upon layer of enticing blackberry fruit, a tasty minerality and fine-grained tannins. 32% Merlot and 6% Petit Verdot complete the blend and help to create a wine which continues the recent successes of this highly thought of property.

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

Critics reviews

Wine Advocate92+/100
Owned by the Cuvelier family since 1920, this property over the last 20 years has made some great wines in the Mdoc. The 2012, a blend of 61% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 8% Petit Verdot and 4% Cabernet Franc, is opaque purple, thick-looking, and from bottle much more impressive than it was from barrel. This very extracted, rich, full-bodied, masculine Loville Poyferr needs a good 5-8 years of bottle age and should evolve well for at least 20-25 years. Loads of blackberry and cassis, crushed rock and graphite notes are present in this medium to full-bodied, impressively concentrated and pure wine. Forget it for a while, as this is one of the bigger, richer Mdocs.
Robert M. Parker, Jr. - 30/04/2015 Read more
Jancis Robinson MW17.5/20
Dark purple. Some real energy hidden in this, not desperately expressive wine. Voluptuous on the palate. Gosh what a lot of effort has gone into this. Full marks for effort...Lots of lusciousness and then it's drawn to a dry close like someone tightening a purse string. Though I'd guess not too much purse-string tightening while making this...Appealing freshness.
Jancis Robinson MW, jancisrobinson.com, 23 Apr 2013 Read more
Wine Spectator90-93/100
Solid, with good flesh around the core of plum and blackberry fruit. Shows ample dark toast and ganache notes, displaying chewy yet integrated grip.
James Molesworth, Wine Spectator, April 8 2013 Read more
Robert Parker89-91/100
This wine seemed primary and not totally filled out or complete. No doubt it will put on some weight given the significant Merlot content in the final blend. There is a certain firmness, stiffness and lack of intensity on the mid-palate, and some tannins kick in in the finish. Nevertheless, there is more to this wine than first meets the palate. It is medium to full-bodied with an opaque color, good ripeness and some attractive weight, but is closed and hard. It needs time to pull itself together, and it should turn out to be an excellent, possibly outstanding effort.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate - Apr 2013 Read more
Decanter17.5+/20
Dense purple-red, well-concentrated ripeness, with 2012 greenness to be absorbed as it ages, good wine, good future. Read more

About this WINE

Château Léoville Poyferré

Château Léoville Poyferré

Château Léoville Poyferré is a wine estate in St Julien on the Left Bank of Bordeaux. It was once part a larger estate called Léoville, which was established in 1638 and divided up centuries later following the death of its owner. That original estate gave rise to the three separate properties now called Léoville Barton, Léoville Las Cases and Léoville Poyferré. The latter took its name in 1840 from Baron Jean-Marie de Poyferré, who inherited the estate along with his wife, the daughter of Jeanne de Las Cases. Léoville Poyferré, like Barton and Las Cases, was ranked a Second Growth in the 1855 classification.

The estate has been owned and run since 1920 by the Cuvelier family. Having established themselves as wine merchants in Lille in Northern France, the family had recently bought Château Le Crock in St Estèphe before expanding into St Julien with both Léoville Poyferré and Château Moulin Riche. The family firm is led today by Sara Lecompte Cuvelier, who took over from her uncle Didier Cuvelier in 2017. She works with long-time winemaker Isabelle Davin. Michel Rolland has been the consultant here since the mid-1990s.

The portfolio here includes the grand vin, Château Léoville Poyferré, along with the estate’s second wine, Pavillon de Léoville Poyferré. Moulin Riche was once considered an unofficial second wine of Léoville Poyferré but has since 2009 been very much its own estate wine.

Find out more
St Julien

St Julien

St Julien is the smallest of the "Big Four" Médoc communes. Although, without any First Growths, St Julien is recognised to be the most consistent of the main communes, with several châteaux turning out impressive wines year after year. 

St Julien itself is much more of a village than Pauillac and almost all of the notable properties lie to its south. Its most northerly château is Ch. Léoville Las Cases (whose vineyards actually adjoin those of Latour in Pauillac) but,  further south, suitable vineyard land gives way to arable farming and livestock until the Margaux appellation is reached.  

The soil is gravelly and finer than that of Pauillac, and without the iron content which gives Pauillac its stature. The homogeneous soils in the vineyards (which extend over a relatively small area of just over 700 hectares) give the commune a unified character.

The wines can be assessed as much by texture as flavour, and there is a sleek, wholesome character to the best. Elegance, harmony and perfect balance and weight, with hints of cassis and cedar, are what epitomise classic St Julien wines. At their very best they combine Margaux’s elegance and refinement with Pauillac’s power and substance.

Ch. Léoville Las Cases produces arguably the most sought-after St Julien, and in any reassessment of the 1855 Classification it would almost certainly warrant being elevated to First Growth status.

Recommended Châteaux: Ch. Léoville Las CasesCh.Léoville Barton, Ch Léoville Poyferré, Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillou, Ch Langoa Barton, Ch Gruaud Larose, Ch. Branaire-Ducru, Ch. Beychevelle

Find out more
Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon blend

Cabernet Sauvignon lends itself particularly well in blends with Merlot. This is actually the archetypal Bordeaux blend, though in different proportions in the sub-regions and sometimes topped up with Cabernet Franc, Malbec, and Petit Verdot.

In the Médoc and Graves the percentage of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend can range from 95% (Mouton-Rothschild) to as low as 40%. It is particularly suited to the dry, warm, free- draining, gravel-rich soils and is responsible for the redolent cassis characteristics as well as the depth of colour, tannic structure and pronounced acidity of Médoc wines. However 100% Cabernet Sauvignon wines can be slightly hollow-tasting in the middle palate and Merlot with its generous, fleshy fruit flavours acts as a perfect foil by filling in this cavity.

In St-Emilion and Pomerol, the blends are Merlot dominated as Cabernet Sauvignon can struggle to ripen there - when it is included, it adds structure and body to the wine. Sassicaia is the most famous Bordeaux blend in Italy and has spawned many imitations, whereby the blend is now firmly established in the New World and particularly in California and  Australia.

Find out more