2022 La Gaffelière, St-Émilion

The 2022 La Gaffelière is fantastic, but it has also closed down considerably post-bottling. Supremely elegant and perfumed, the 2022 is an absolutely stunning wine. Blood orange, pomegranate, spice, white pepper, dried herbs and all sorts of floral overtones soar from the glass. The Franc is so impressive here. I don't expect this magical Saint-Émilion to be ready any time soon. Today, it is a wine of dazzling complexity and purity for the cellar. (AG)

Is this one of the best buys in all of fine wine? It’s hard to argue otherwise. The 2022 La Gaffelière brings together an epic vintage, a singular limestone‑rich terroir, and a pair of legitimate 99‑point scores, all while landing under $90. That combination borders on surreal. This is elite, top‑tier St‑Émilion at a price that feels almost out of step with the quality in the bottle. La Gaffelière has long been a favorite of ours at K&L, a château we’ve championed for years, and one whose reputation has only grown as they’ve leaned more intentionally into their hillside, Ausone‑adjacent parcels for the Grand Vin. These slopes give the wine its unmistakable identity—brightness, lift, and that limestone‑driven minerality that separates the great from the merely very good. In 2022, they managed to capture all the luxurious depth and textural generosity of the vintage while still preserving the tension and definition that make the estate’s best wines so thrilling. Achieving that balance is a feat; achieving it at this price point is something else entirely. Layered, expressive, and genuinely unputdownable, the 2022 La Gaffelière is a triumph—one of the most compelling sweet‑spot collectible buys in modern Bordeaux.