France

95 Points! So good, this is a vibrant mix of young and exuberant, luxurious, seriously creamy in texture, crushed stone, baked earth, smoked caramel, damson, sweet blackberry and damson fruits. This is pure pleasure, hard to resist. 45% new oak, 40hl/ha yield, harvest September 23 to October 4. Remi di Constanzo technical director. - Jane Anson

94 Points! Sweet berry and cherry aromas with violets, following through to a medium to full body with creamy, linear tannins and a long, flavorful finish. Tight and curated, in a structured way. Try after 2027. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

94 Points! Rock-solid, with a mouthwatering roasted apple wood and mesquite frame around a well-layered core of black currant, blackberry and plum fruit flavors. The finish features dots of tobacco and tar that add range but the real driver is a long bolt of iron, which gives this a throwback feel. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. Best from 2025 through 2038. - Wine Spectator

94 Points! The 2019 Gloria personifies classic Saint-Julien, offering blackberry, wild hedgerow, cedar and tobacco scents, maybe a little conservative in style, but unashamed about that. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, quite firm tannins. Fresh and saline, this gets the saliva going with a precise, persistent finish and leaves hints of graphite on the aftertaste. Excellent. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

 

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95 Points & Wine Spectator #4 Wine of the Year 2022! Well-built and rather refined for the vintage, with a deep well of red and black currant paste and plum reduction flavors supported by a deeply inlaid iron note, all of which run the length of the wine. Offers subtle savory, tobacco and singed cedar notes that add range, with a savory echo that leaves a mouthwatering feel in the end. Built to cellar. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Best from 2025 through 2040. - Wine Spectator

95 Points! Ripe redcurrants and plums with violet and other flowers on the nose. Full-bodied with firm, polished tannins that are ripe yet firm. Pure fruit here. Pretty center-palate. Chewy finish. Give this at least five or six years to come around. Best after 2026. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com Learn More

98 Points! One of my favorite wines (although it's hard to find), La Violette makes a rich, sexy, yet always elegant and seamless style of Pomerol. Their 2019 Château La Violette is deep purple-hued and offers an incredible perfume of blue fruits, iron, tobacco, spice box, flowers, and loamy earth. Full-bodied on the palate, it shows the pure, elegant style of the vintage, has beautiful tannins, perfect balance, and a great, great finish. There's lots of creamy background oak that needs time to integrate, but this is another remarkable release from this team. Give it a few years and enjoy over the following 20-25. - Jeb Dunnuck

95 Points! The 2019 La Violette offers typical ravishing scents of blueberry, crème de cassis and violet (of course), modern yet irresistible and well-defined, and better than in previous years. The palate is medium-bodied, fleshy yet balanced, with supple tannins, copious, lightly spiced red fruit and a pure, concentrated finish. A delicious Pomerol that offers hedonic pleasure. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

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100 Points! An utterly brilliant Pomerol and the finest wine from this estate to date, surpassing even the 2016, the 2019 Château La Conseillante checks in as 84% Merlot and 16% Cabernet Franc and was raised in 70% new French oak. A wine of incredible finesse, purity, and precision, its deep purple hue is following by an incredible array of blueberries, crème de cassis, spring flowers, damp earth, and violets. Flawlessly balanced, full-bodied, and concentrated on the palate, it has a beautiful mid-palate, ultra-fine, utterly seamless tannins, and a heavenly finish. It doesn't have the sheer density or outright power of some of the other top Pomerols, but as I wrote in the barrel sample review, no one marries elegance with opulence as well as Conseillante. This magical Pomerol will take a decade to hit full maturity and will evolve for 30 years or more. This is haute couture at its absolute pinnacle, and as I wrote in the barrel review, hats off to Marielle Cazaux for producing one of the top wines of the vintage. - Jeb Dunnuck

99 Points! The transparency and vibrancy here is impressive. From the very start it’s so aromatic, showing crushed-berry, dark-chocolate, coffee and cedar character. Full-bodied, yet tight and wonderfully tailored, with tannins that are fine-textured, but intense and so long, giving this wine great length. A joy to taste, but needs many years to soften and come together. Wonderful development here. Try after 2028. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

98 Points! The 2019 La Conseillante was stellar from the sample sent to "Martin Towers" in spring 2020, and the news is that there is no change in bottle. Allowed to open while gossiping away with winemaker Marielle Cazaux (you have to catch up when you are unable to see people regularly), the 2019 unveils an awesome, extraordinarily pure bouquet that seduces the senses, featuring dark cherries, blueberry, pressed violet and a touch of blood orange, all displaying wonderful delineation. The palate is medium-bodied and cohesive, with fine-grained tannins and a judicious touch of black pepper toward the finish, which fans out gloriously while maintaining a sense of class. The best La Conseillante since the 2010? No - better. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

 

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95 Points! The 2019 Bellevue Mondotte, picked at 18hL/ha on a single day (October 5) has a tightly wound bouquet of blackberry, briary, blueberry and light violet petal scents, but less of the marine aromas that I picked out from the barrel sample. However, there are some lovely orange pith scents that percolate through with continued aeration, and these are accentuated after a couple of hours. The palate is medium-bodied with gentle grip, good acidity and fine backbone. This is quite a sturdy Saint-Émilion with impressive density toward the finish. It needs just a little more charm and personality, though they may develop with time. Very fine, but patience required. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media

98 Points! More seamless and elegant than the more powerful, structured Pavie Decesse (these all emerge from the Perse team), the Merlot-dominated 2019 Bellevue Mondotte just about jumps out of the glass with its ripe, spicy red, blue, and black fruits as well as spring flowers, graphite, chalky mineral, and violet-like aromas and flavors. Almost Pomerol-like with its seamless, polished tannins and gorgeous mouthfeel, it's flawlessly balanced, has a deep, layered mid-palate, and a great, great finish. This stunning Saint-Emilion will benefit from just 4-6 years of bottle age and cruise for 30+ years in cold cellars. - Jeb Dunnuck

 

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93-94 Points! Plenty of deep, rich fruit with blackberries, tar and walnuts. Moss, too. It’s full and flavorful. Tannic and rich. Very intense. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

93-95 Points! A year-in, year-out value, the 2019 Château Monbousquet knocks it out of the park with its ripe, sexy, yet also elegant profile. Currants, black cherries, blueberries, toasted spice, chocolate, and a touch of minerality all define the bouquet, and it's beautifully balanced, has richness as well as elegance, and is unquestionably a stunning 2019! - Jeb Dunnuck

Expected ABV: Over 14%

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99 Points! The 2019 Château Pavie is another beauty that offers more density and sexiness than just about every other wine in the vintage, yet it is still an unnecessarily restrained expression of this terroir, which is the fad in Bordeaux these days. Based on 50% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc, and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon that was brought up in 80% new French oak, this deep purple-hued effort has a great bouquet of ripe black cherries, darker currants, tobacco leaf, violets, and graphite, with a beautiful sense of minerality and salinity on the palate. Full-bodied, concentrated, and powerful, it has plenty of background oak, a deep, layered mid-palate, terrific tannins, and a great finish. It shows the more understated, elegant style of the vintage yet is still pure Pavie. Hide bottles for 5-7 years and enjoy over the following 30+. - Jeb Dunnuck

99 Points! Pavie has finally reached its replanting goal, and the 2019 Pavie is a blend of 50% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Franc, and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon. Deep garnet-purple colored, it needs a little swirling before it tumbles effortlessly out of the glass with vibrant notes of cassis, fresh, ripe plums, crushed blackberries, and violets, plus suggestions of menthol, mossy tree bark, crushed rocks, and cumin seed. Full-bodied, it has a rock-solid frame of super-firm, grainy tannins and a racy backbone cutting through the densely layered black fruits, finishing with epic length and minerality. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, The Wine Independent

 

 

 

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94 Points! The 2015 Pavillon Rouge de Margaux has a detailed, wonderfully focused bouquet of violet-infused black fruit, sublime mineralité and real sophistication; the oak is seamlessly integrated. The very well-balanced palate offers filigreed tannin and layers of sweet black cherry and cassis fruit that segue into a tensile, mineral-driven finish. Pure joy, pure class. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting. - Neal Martin, Vinous Media Learn More

94 Points! This is a solid Pauillac with a medium to full body and chewy tannins that are polished and energetic . Plenty of blackcurrant, lemon and wet-earth character. A little tight at the end. Needs at least three or four years of bottle age to open. Will age very nicely. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

94 Points! The 2019 Lynch-Moussas is a wild, potent wine. Dark red cherry, iron, smoke, espresso, licorice, leather and mint convey intensity and virile power. The 2019 is deep and fleshy, at times a bit rustic too, but long on character. I would give it a few years in bottle first. - Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media

 

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96 Points! Aromas of crushed stone, blackcurrants and blackberries. Full-bodied with extremely well-crafted tannins that are chewy and layered, yet polished and fantastic. Love the finish. 72% cabernet sauvignon, 25% petit verdot, 22% merlot and 4% cabernet franc. Drink after 2026. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

95 Points! The 2019 Clerc Milon is a real success. At more than 70%, this blend contains one of the highest proportions of Cabernet Sauvignon in the property's recent history, and the result is a wine of real nobility. Offering up aromas of violets, wild berries, licorice, loamy soil and cigar wrapper, it's full-bodied, layered and multidimensional, with notable depth at the core, lively acids and ripe, powdery tannins that assert themselves on the finish. From clay-limestone soils rather than the sandy gravels that characterize d'Armailhac, this is by some margin the more structured and serious of Mouton-Rothschild's two Pauillac stablemates. - William Kelley, robertparker.com

 

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97 Points! A luscious red with redcurrant, chocolate, plum and hazelnut. Rather opulent on the nose. Full-bodied and very structured with chewy tannins that are intense and powerful. This needs time to come together and soften. 68% cabernet sauvignon and 32% merlot. Better after 2027. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

94 Points! The 2019 Le Petit Mouton clearly retains its bold bouquet of bravura scents of blackberry, blood orange, and touches of cassis and violet petals, the 50% new oak seamlessly integrated over 18 months. The palate is silky-smooth on the entry, deep and displaying fine grip. This is definitely one of the most seductive Le Petit Mouton releases in recent years. It tightens a little toward the graphite-tinged finish, so afford it more time in bottle than I originally predicted. Superb. Neal Martin, Vinous Media

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97 Points! This has rich dark-fruit and smoky character with notes of ripe plums, black olives, spices, cocoa and clay-like soil. Some sweet tobacco, too. Full body, layers of fine, polished tannins and a round, creamy texture. Pure fruit with a touch of blue flowers. Rich and complex, yet fresh and delicious. Long and firm with a polished, earthy finish. Really impressive and rather decadent at the end. Le Pin-like. Try after 2025. - James Suckling, jamessuckling.com

98 Points! The 2019 Enclos Tourmaline is a tiny production Pomerol coming from a one-hectare vineyard beside Clinet. It's a rich, powerful, yet incredibly elegant Pomerol that does everything right, offering beautiful cassis and darker cherry fruits, notes of cedarwood, spicy oak, and chocolate, full-bodied richness, silky tannins, and a great finish. It marries opulence with finesse perfectly and is one heck of an impressive Pomerol that can be drunk any time over the coming 25 years or so. Pomerol was one of the standout appellations in 2019, and this shows it. - Jeb Dunnuck

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99 Points! So much sweet tobacco, stone, brambleberry and currant on the nose. The palate is full and compact with very polished tannins, yet they are solid and sturdy and run the length and width of the wine. Energetic acidity. Very structured and powerful, yet agile and impressive. Historic feel. From biodynamically grown grapes. This needs at least six years of bottle age to soften. Try after 2027. - JamesSuckling.com

99 Points! A blend of 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot, and 4% Petit Verdot, the 2019 Palmer is deep purple-black in color. It needs a little swirling to reveal a powerful core of plum preserves, blueberry compote, and creme de cassis scents, leading to nuances of licorice, mocha, black olives, and lavender, with a waft of fertile loam. Medium to full-bodied, it is rich and generous in the mouth with a firm backbone of ripe, rounded tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and fragrant. It maintains that flamboyance and opulence that is Palmer, yet with breathtaking restraint. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, The Wine Independent

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99 Points! A true wow wine, the deep, concentrated 2016 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Hauts-Lieux (there's 20% Mourvèdre) offers awesome notes of blackcurrants, smoked meats, graphite, crushed rocks, and licorice. Extraordinarily concentrated, perfectly balanced, structured, and long, it's another sensational wine from this estate. - Jeb Dunnuck

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99 Points! A great wine with superb concentration and richness. yet it's ever so agile and polished. Spices, blueberries, cinnamon and dried flowers. Full body and polished and full tannins. Great length. The refinement to the tannins is amazing. Compacted. Essence-like. Needs five or six years to open. Try in 2025. - JamesSuckling.com Learn More

97 Points! This is so vivid as it brims with pastis-soaked plum, blackberry, black currant and blueberry paste flavors, all carried by a perfectly integrated brambly spine. Tar and ganache notes give the finish an extra kick while everything stays within the mouthwatering roasted apple wood frame. Both regal and rambunctious, this is St.-Julien to a T. - Wine Spectator Learn More

95 Points! A juicy and flavorful Champagne with phenolics and a brightness and energy. Full with lots of flavors like sliced pineapple, dried peach and stone, yet it is fresh and vibrant. New label and bottle. Henri Giraud DNA in this. About 80% pinot noir and 20% chardonnay. Drink now. - JamesSuckling.com

92 Points! Based on the 2017 vintage (complemented with some 50% from the house's perpetual reserve) and disgorged in January 2020, the latest rendition of the NV Brut Esprit Nature is showing very well, mingling aromas of yellow orchard fruit and peach with nuances of toasted bread, candied peel, white flowers, clear honey and fresh almonds. Medium to full-bodied, fleshy and enveloping, it's elegantly vinous, with lively acids and a long, delicately oak-inflected finish. Fermented in barrels, some 20% of the blend derives from domaine holdings. - William Kelley, robertparker.com

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92 Points! Dosed with five grams per liter in November 2017, Dosnon's NV Recolte Noire (Black Label) is a pure, oak-fermented Pinot Noir from the Côte des Bar. White-golden in color, this is a fine, fresh and delicately fruity Champagne with just a hint of oak. Intense, fresh and lush on the palate, this is a straight, perfectly round and well-structured Blanc de Noirs with good grip and vitality on the finish. Excellent! - Stephan Reinhardt, robertparker.com Learn More

100 Points! One of the wines of the vintage is the 2018 Château Pavie, and Gérard Perse continues to produce one of the greatest wines in the world, in just about every vintage. Based on 60% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Franc and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2018 shows the slightly more restrained style of the estate today yet still brings classic Pavie richness, depth, and grandeur. Revealing a deep purple color as well as a sensational bouquet of crème de cassis, damp earth, tobacco, chalk, and lead pencil shavings, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, incredible purity, a dense, concentrated mid-palate, and a liqueur of rocks-like sense of minerality on the blockbuster finish. There's a backward, inward style here that actually reminds me of the 2000. This is another magical, probably immortal wine from this terroir that marries power with elegance perfectly. Don't miss it! - Jeb Dunnuck, jebdunnuck.com

99 Points! The 2018 Pavie is a blend of 60% Merlot, 22% Cabernet Franc and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine has a 3.58 pH and 14.48% alcohol. Very deep garnet-purple in color, it bursts from the glass with a fabulously expressive nose of crème de cassis, baked plums and blueberry preserves, leading to an impressive array of nuances, featuring notions of dark chocolate, camphor, licorice, rose petals and fertile loam, plus hints of crushed rocks and iron ore. The rich, full-bodied palate offers layer upon layer of opulent black and blue fruits with loads of exotic spice sparks and pretty floral and mineral accents, supported by firm, super plush tannins and remarkable tension, finishing with epic length and depth. This could only be Pavie. It makes for a seductively stylish glass now, but patience will be rewarded if it is afforded 5-7 years in bottle, at least, then drink it over the next 30+ years. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

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