Winemaker Notes
Blend: 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 2% Petit Verdot
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Heavenly stuff, the 2023 Château Léoville Poyferré checks in as 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot that spent 18-20 months in 80% new French oak. It brings more sexiness and richness than most in the vintage, yet it isn't over the top and plays in the more classic, elegant style of the vintage. Crème de cassis, spring flowers, violets, graphite, and spicy wood all show on the nose, and it's medium to full-bodied, with a pure, graceful, and layered mouthfeel, beautiful tannins, and a great finish. I love its purity, and this is just loaded with charm. While it's already hard to resist, it should evolve gracefully on its balance, purity, and elegance.
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James Suckling
A very solid and intense wine with plenty of pure blackberry, blueberry and chocolate character but still subtle and sophisticated. It's full-bodied, very structured, chewy and caressing, with pretty tannins and a long finish. Needs four or five years to soften.
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Vinous
The 2023 Léoville-Poyferré is positively stellar. Medium in body, vibrant and beautifully persistent, the 2023 is all class. It also signals a shift away from the richer (but equally successful) style favored here in the recent past, now moving toward an approach that favors more vibrancy. Dark red-toned fruit, blood orange, spice, mocha and cedar infuse the 2023 with notable freshness and verve. The new Léoville-Poyferré is quite the stunner. Tasted two times. –Antonio Galloni
Barrel Sample: 95-97 -
Decanter
Bramble fruit tones on the nose with some floral elements of peony, violet and rose. Smells rich and ripe and quite opulent. Smooth and agile, a lovely energy straight away with bright, almost high-toned fruit, the acidity giving the lift and sense of freshness. Lean and straight but so juicy so you get the relatively tight structure but with mouthwatering acidity and a touch of sweetness adding bounce and pep to the expression. It’s still quite compact in terms of real expansion but there’s a long length. Really suave, almost subtle and dialled back which is great and the juiciness is totally moreish. I love it. Easy, generous, appealing. 52.78hl/ha. 10% press wine. 2% Petit Verdot completes the blend. 55% grand vin production.
Barrel Sample: 96 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aromas of cassis, plums, pencil shavings and toasty new oak introduce the 2023 Léoville Poyferré, a medium to full-bodied, rich and chunky wine with a deep core of succulent fruit framed by sweet, generously extracted tannins. It's a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot that saw some saignée and osmosis for additional concentration. As usual, it's the creamiest, most "modern"-styled of the three Léovilles. Harvest began on September 14 and concluded on October 5, with fermentations a little cooler than usual, perhaps an intimation of a stylistic evolution in progress.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Wine Spectator
his is well-packed, offering blackberry and boysenberry compote backed by bramble, cast iron, licorice root and warm earth notes. Tobacco and apple wood frame the finish, with a violet echo at the end. Should unfurl nicely in the cellar. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
The 2023 Château Léoville Poyferré was a revelation. While I have enjoyed many past vintages from this estate, the 2023 stood apart and made me take a second look. The wine offers beautifully defined fruit and an undeniably fresh, vibrant disposition on the palate, combining elegance with quiet confidence. Pair it with bossam—slow-poached pork belly served warm with napa cabbage, lightly seasoned ssamjang, and crisp radish kimchi, where the gentle savoriness and restrained spice complement the wine’s purity and lift rather than overpower it. ((Tasted: January 22, 2026, San Francisco, CA)
One of the world’s most classic and popular styles of red wine, Bordeaux-inspired blends have spread from their homeland in France to nearly every corner of the New World. Typically based on either Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot and supported by Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot, the best of these are densely hued, fragrant, full of fruit and boast a structure that begs for cellar time. Somm Secret—Blends from Bordeaux are generally earthier compared to those from the New World, which tend to be fruit-dominant.
An icon of balance and tradition, St. Julien boasts the highest proportion of classed growths in the Médoc. What it lacks in any first growths, it makes up in the rest: five amazing second growth chateaux, two superb third growths and four well-reputed fourth growths. While the actual class rankings set in 1855 (first, second, and so on the fifth) today do not necessarily indicate a score of quality, the classification system is important to understand in the context of Bordeaux history. Today rivalry among the classed chateaux only serves to elevate the appellation overall.
One of its best historically, the estate of Leoville, was the largest in the Médoc in the 18th century, before it was divided into the three second growths known today as Chateau Léoville-Las-Cases, Léoville-Poyferré and Léoville-Barton. Located in the north section, these are stone’s throw from Chateau Latour in Pauillac and share much in common with that well-esteemed estate.
The relatively homogeneous gravelly and rocky top soil on top of clay-limestone subsoil is broken only by a narrow strip of bank on either side of the “jalle,” or stream, that bisects the zone and flows into the Gironde.
St. Julien wines are for those wanting subtlety, balance and consistency in their Bordeaux. Rewarding and persistent, the best among these Bordeaux Blends are full of blueberry, blackberry, cassis, plum, tobacco and licorice. They are intense and complex and finish with fine, velvety tannins.