Not the greatest vintage ever:
2001 Château Léoville-Poyferré - magnums recently ex-Château
Get on and enjoy it.
Simon Larkin MW, Atlas Fine Wines
2001 Château Léoville-Poyferré
£1,190 per 6 magnum case in bond
I am not particularly worried about what any critic thinks of 2001 Château Léoville-Poyferré. I have tasted enough bottles over the last three or four years to feel very confident that this wine will deliver considerable pleasure at its current stage of maturity. It is beautifully balanced, mid-weight, and is now showing fine complexity.
Is it the finest Léoville-Poyferré ever made? Absolutely not. It is not the greatest vintage ever. Is it a Bordeaux from a slightly bygone era, with impeccable balance and more moderate alcohol, that will appeal enormously to those who value mature, classical claret? Most definitely.
It has become something of a go-to choice for me for lunches and dinners with clients and friends, precisely because, for my palate, it is approaching its peak and it never disappoints. It is the kind of Bordeaux I particularly enjoy at lunch: mid-weight, moderate in alcohol - not the sort of wine that writes off the afternoon. The difficulty today is finding stock of such a 25-year-old wine in genuinely good condition and with impeccable provenance. I have acquired a good few cases over recent years but, perhaps unsurprisingly, I hand-sold these on recommendation to a handful of my clients.
I should stress that at this age, condition really matters.
I am therefore particularly pleased to have accessed a parcel of magnums released by the château in 2025 to the European merchant from whom I am buying them. That gives us exactly the sort of provenance I want when buying mature Bordeaux: these magnums spent their first 24 years at the château before being released into the market. There is no questioning the storage conditions. They are pristine and will show just as they should.
And, of course, they are in magnum, a format that generally matures more slowly because the amount of oxygen in the headspace between the wine and cork is not proportionately greater than in a standard bottle, so there is less oxygen relative to the increased volume of wine. This should give good scope for further ageing should you wish.
Having said that, I am sure I wouldn’t wait too long. For me, this wine is already in a wonderfully rewarding place, that magic moment when everything seems in harmony, with the complexity that comes with evolution yet retaining juiciness and revealing well-resolved tannins.
And having said at the outset that I am not particularly worried about critics’ opinions, I appreciate that some clients may find independent corroboration reassuring. You non-believers out there! And in this instance, William Kelley rather helpfully makes my case for me. In February 2022, he awarded the 2001 Château Léoville-Poyferré a solid 94 points, describing it as ‘a major sleeper of the vintage’, a quirky phrase that Robert Parker regularly employed for a wine whose quality proved considerably better with time than was widely appreciated when young. Kelley judged that it had reached its ‘plateau of maturity’, with a drinking window extending to 2041.
Kelley found cassis and ripe blackberry alongside more evolved notes of loamy soil, cigar wrapper and violets, backed by lively acidity and powdery tannins. It sounds very much like the wine I have been enjoying.
Would I want to be drinking this vintage in the late 2030s or early 2040s? Personally, no. I don’t doubt that it would still be alive, particularly in magnum, but the more pertinent question is whether it would actually be appreciably better.
For me, that rather misses the point. This is mature claret doing exactly what mature claret should do. It has fruit, complexity, freshness and balance without excess weight. In magnum and with this provenance, I would be entirely comfortable drinking it over the next decade, perhaps to 2035 or thereabouts.
But honestly, I rather hope nobody who buys it manages to keep it that long. It is simply too rewarding now.
A 25-year-old classed growth Bordeaux at just under £200 per magnum in bond, with impeccable provenance and two ringing endorsements? And don’t be put off by the magnum format. Put one on the table for a lunch with friends and I suspect the problem will be quite the opposite: it will disappear remarkably quickly.
Get on and enjoy it.
2001 Château Léoville-Poyferré
£1,190 per 6 magnum case in bond
Please let us know of your interest.
Simon
simon.larkin@atlasfinewines.com