Featured Selections
The real insider stuff — celebrated picks sourced directly from our latest text and email offers. These are the bottles our team has been buzzing about, handpicked and featured for a reason. Don't miss out.
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Beau Séjour Becot Saint Emilion 2016 Pre arrival Ex-Chateau
$74.98QuickviewJD95WS94DEC94JS95RP95WE95Learn More96 Points | Jeff Leve, The Wine Cellar Insider
Jeff Leve called this the finest wine the Bécot family had produced to that point, praising its opulent, polished texture, silky red fruit, crushed-rock minerality, thyme and floral accents. He also singled out its exceptional quality relative to its price and recommended 8–10 years of cellaring.
95 Jeb Dunnuck
Showing spectacularly well on the two occasions I was able to taste it, the 2016 Château Beau-Séjour Bécot is a blend of 80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon, aged 16 months in 90% new oak, and hitting a healthy 14.5% natural alcohol. This straight-up classy, seamless, ultra-fine Saint Emilion offers a beautiful bouquet of red currants, white truffles, spice, and flowers. With brilliant limestone character, fabulous intensity on both the nose and palate, ultra-fine tannins, and a magical texture, it’s approachable today yet has another 20+ years of prime drinking.
95 James Suckling
Extremely aromatic and lifted on the nose with wild fruit and flowers, as well as chalk and mushroom undertones. Full body and ultra-fine tannins with beautiful grace and balance. Shows structure yet refinement at the same time. Needs four to five years to come completely together, but already so beautiful. Drink after 2023.
95 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 Beau-Sejour Becot (80% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Franc and 5% Cabernet Sauvignon) is just a little closed to begin, opening out to reveal beautiful chocolate-covered cherries, preserved plums and black raspberries scents with touches of stewed tea, tobacco, red roses and cinnamon stick. Full-bodied and jam-packed with perfumed fruit layers, it has a rock-solid frame of ripe, finely grained tannins and layer upon layer of provocative black fruit and savory layers on the finish.
95 Wine Enthusiast
This wine has a smoky quality, with ripe tannins and dense blackberry and spice flavors as well as wonderful freshness. The wine has considerable potential, rich in tannins and acidity. It will be ready to drink from 2025.
94 Decanter
Right on the limestone plateau, this has a lovely delivery of extremely ripe black fruits dotted through with minerality and little pulses of electricity. Extremely successful, this will age well thanks to elongated tannins that are chalky in all the right places. Again, we have this slight austerity on the finish, a reminder than 2016 is not the right bank party we saw in 2015, but this is excellent with such a beautiful balance. Drinking Window 2027 - 2050.
94 Wine Spectator
This is a fresh and unencumbered style, with a beam of pure blackberry and raspberry fruit racing through, carried by a polished structure and infused with alluring black tea and incense tones. The finish is velvety, with graphite and tobacco notes buried within. Best from 2022 through 2036.
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Architect Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2016
$39.98QuickviewResurrecting our coveted Architect Reserve label, this is a Napa Valley Cabernet of the highest caliber, quietly bottle-aged in an un-named Valley cellar for nearly a decade before it found its way to us. Crafted by top-flight winemaker Steve Matthiasson from renowned single-vineyard sites in Rutherford, Coombsville and Oak Knoll, it harkens back to the classic, polished, age-worthy Napa Cabs of the past, think old-school BV Georges de Latour, Corison and Montelena. The great 2016 vintage is drinking beautifully right now, showing youthful fruit framed by the refined tannins only real bottle age can give. It's a true "Reserve" in every sense, yet at a classic Spectrum price it's the perfect summer entertaining Cabernet, the bottle you bring to the BBQ or pool party to wow your friends, who'll never guess how little you paid. Buy it by the case while you can. Just $39.98, only 50 cases.
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Chateau Haut Brion Pessac-Leognan 2016 Pre Arrival Ex-Chateau 1-Pack OWC
$689.98HURRY, ONLY 4 LEFT!QuickviewJD98+DEC100JA100JS100LPB100VM100RP100WE100100 Points | Wine Advocate
Lisa Perrotti-Brown found an extraordinary combination of floral, mineral and cassis character, framed by exceptionally fine tannins and seamless freshness. Her review emphasized the wine's profound aromatics, elegance and remarkably long finish.
100 Points | Vinous
Antonio Galloni found the 2016 even more impressive from bottle than it had been from barrel. He praised the wine's combination of tremendous power and richness without heaviness, along with the classic gravel, tobacco and cedar character that makes Haut-Brion so distinctive.
100 Points | James Suckling
Suckling found tremendous black fruit and forest berry character wrapped around an intensely structured palate. He praised the extremely fine-grained tannins, vibrant acidity and seemingly endless finish, highlighting its very long aging potential.
100 Points | Decanter
Jane Anson found a wine of hidden power, with charcoal, tobacco, dark plum and damson fruit emerging as it opened. She praised its layered tannins and understated authority, concluding:
“A great wine En primeur that has settled into greatness.”
100 Points | Wine Enthusiast
Roger Voss described the 2016 as one of the finest Haut-Brions in many years, emphasizing its immense tannic structure, powerful black fruit and acidity.
This is a wine built for long-term aging.
100 Points | Jeff Leve, Wine Cellar Insider
Jeff Leve was equally enthusiastic, awarding the wine a perfect 100 points. The nose explodes with smoke, mint, cigar wrapper, tobacco and crème de cassis, but for Leve, what really separates the wine is its combination of elegance, concentration, complexity, extraordinary length and sensuous texture.
His conclusion gets right to the point:
“This is one of those dream wines that if you can afford it, it belongs in your cellar!”
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