If you drink and follow Bordeaux wines at all you probably have heard about the great wines of Leoville Las Cases. If you get our e-mails you're sure to have seen us extolling this, admittedly great Bordeaux house. Often compared to and sometimes considered at the same level of the First Growths, there is much to love about Leoville Las Cases.
There is also the slightly lesser well known Leoville Barton; while Las Cases often gets press for its high scores Barton is often praised for being a fantastic value. Usually garnering high scores but with a price tag that is very reasonable for Bordeaux, Barton is rightly considered a great buy.
And then there is Leoville Poyferre, situated right between its siblings Barton and Las Cases in St. Julien (all three were at one time a single huge vineyard). Poyferre was once considered as good as the other two even achieving Second Growth status (like the others) in the Classification of 1855. On top of that the vineyard itself has long been thought to possess better soil than its siblings with a greater ability to produce profound wines. But poor Leoville Poyferre fell on hard times and in the '60s and '70s produced a string of disappointments.
After control was handed over to Didier Cuvelier (must give credit where credit is due) in 1979 Leoville Poyferre was on the comeback trail.
Like most people I love a good underdog-having-its-day story. The pinnacle of that comeback may be the wine produced in the torrid 2003 vintage. While many houses made some of their greatest wines in 2000 and 2005 (which Poyferre did too) the record breaking heat posed a significant challenge to many Bordeaux houses in 2003. Many rose to meet that challenge but a few managed to craft a truly profound wine. One of those was Leoville Poyferre
The 2003 Leoville Poyferre gets high marks and great reviews from just about every corner of the wine world. Since its renaissance is still under way THIS wine is a steal (98 RP, $139/ bottle)!