93 Monica Larner - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Packaged with its dark blue label, the 2018 Brunello di Montalcino displays a very specific character that I always recognize in this wine. The house style is a callout to local winemaking tradition in which there is a slightly wild side to the cherry fruit and forest floor aromas. The oak spice is smoothly integrated into the medium-weight texture, and there is earthy spice and root at the back. The wine closes with freshness, bitter plum and rusty metal. This is a 157,000-bottle release.

98-100 William Kelley - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

A wine that transcended both my lofty expectations and anything produced at this address in the last 50 years, the 2022 Troplong Mondot realizes all the potential of this striking terroir. Unwinding in the glass with aromas of dark berries, cherries, exotic spices, bay leaf and orange zest, it's full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with incredible concentration without weight, supple tannins and a seamless, complete profile, concluding with a long, saline finish. All the work of the last few years in the vineyards and winery makes itself felt, as Troplong Mondot's vineyards took the hot, dry conditions in their stride, and the quality of the fruit that they produced has been preserved by a gentle vinification and a discreet élevage, featuring only 55% new oak and some 20% of the volume in large foudres.

97-99 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

Clearly the finest wine to date under the new team and direction here, the 2022 Château Troplong Mondot reveals a vivid purple hue as well as sensational notes of black raspberries, cassis, acacia flowers, and graphite, with a beautiful underpinning of chalky minerality. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has flawless balance, ultra-fine tannins, no hard edges, and a great, great finish. The purity, precision, and just sheer class are something to behold.

96-98+ Lisa Perrotti-Brown - The Wine Independent

Deep garnet-purple in color, the 2022 Troplong Mondot needs a swirl or two to awaken scents of blueberry compote, juicy blackberries, and Morello cherries, giving way to fragrant wafts of raspberry leaves, wilted roses, Ceylon tea, crushed rocks, and cedar, plus a hint of licorice. The concentrated, big, voluptuous, full-bodied palate is bursting with bright, shiny black and red berry layers, supported by super-plush tannins and fantastic tension, finishing with epic length and loads of mineral sparks. pH 3.48.

97-98 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Very attractive aromas of plums and chocolate with hints of raspberry bush and hazelnut. So fresh and even savory with medium to full body. Such a wide tannin structure building up on the palate. Shows depth and length with lots of minerality. Floral. Beautiful already. 85% merlot, 13% cabernet sauvignon and 2% cabernet franc.

96-98 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

The 2022 Troplong Mondot is one of the most elegant wines I have ever tasted here. Seamless and layered, the 2022 caresses the palate with layers of dark-fleshed fruit, spice, leather and mocha. The purity of the fruit is just remarkable. The typical Troplong stature is present, but the tannins are nearly imperceptible. Clean saline notes extend the long, precise finish. In 2022, the estate was quite selective and only bottled about 70% of the production as Grand Vin, as opposed to the more typical 90% or so.

96-98 Neal Martin - Vinous Media

The 2022 Troplong-Mondot was picked from 29 August when it was 31° Celsius, which according to estate director Aymeric de Gironde, felt cool compared to the rest of summer. The alcohol is 14.9% with the pH of 3.48. It sees no SO2 until it is transferred into barrel. The nose is very attractive and certainly very expressive of its limestone terroir: blackberry, briary, crushed iris petal and light marine scents. The palate is medium-bodied with crunchy black fruit, quite chalky in texture, that acidic spine governing its overall mouthfeel. Sapid on the finish, this Troplong Mondot builds in the mouth and coats it on the finish. De Gironde and I discussed my previous scores. I always said that he would get better and better during his tenure and this is clearly the case in 2022, the best Troplong Mondot...so far.

96 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Attractive forest berries, cherries, pomegranates, dried herbs, dried flowers, pink peppercorns, hot stones, orange rind and some smoky undertones. Medium-bodied with finely grained tannins and bright acidity. So crunchy and precise with a chalky mineral backbone shaping the mid-palate. So much tension and vitality. A little more vertical and fleshy than 2020 but it remains agile and ethereal, with a laser-focused, long, developing finish. 56% valdiguie, 20% black malvasia, 12% cabernet pfeffer, 12% other grapes. Delicious now, but can hold, too.

93 Erin Brooks - Robert Parker's the Wine Advocate

The 2021 Red Table Wine is composed of 56% Napa Gamay (a.k.a. Valdiguié), 20% Black Malvoisie (a.k.a. Cinsaut), 12% Cabernet Pfeffer and 12% mixed black varieties that come from a field blend parcel at Homestead Hill Vineyard in Paso's Willow Creek District. The small parcel is planted to 11 heirloom varieties (nine reds and two whites), and vine material was sourced from vineyards planted before Prohibition. The Red Table Wine was fermented with a high proportion of whole clusters and matured for nine months in 500-liter puncheons. Reminiscent of Pinot Noir or Grenache, it has pure aromas of red cherries, baked raspberries and strawberries, plus wafts of cinnamon, tea leaves, blood orange peel and floral perfume. The medium-bodied palate offers full, fragrant fruit framed by chalky tannins and vibrant acidity, and it has a long, spicy finish. Yum!

96 Roger Voss - Wine Enthusiast

This is now performing as one of the top Margaux estates. Their latest release shows structure, elegant black fruits and rich tannins. Densely textured and vibrantly fruity, the wine has a fine future. Drink from 2027.

96 Jeff Leve - The Wine Cellar Insider

Elegant, fresh and refined, the wine offers layers of sweet, ripe, fresh, red berries, smoke, flowers, wet earth, herbs, spice box and tobacco leaf in the perfume. On the palate, the wine is silky, lifted, long and pure, displaying a beautiful depth of flavor in the finish. The wine blends 74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 21% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 1% Petit Verdot.

95+ Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

A quintessential Margaux as well as one of the finest wines I've tasted from this estate, the 2018 Château Brane-Cantenac is based on 74% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot, all aged in 70% new French oak. Beautiful cassis and mulberry fruits as well as notes of leafy tobacco, spice, cedarwood, and spring flowers emerge from the glass. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced, and elegant, it has loads of fruit, a seamless texture, and a good spine of acidity. Give bottles 4-5 years and enjoy over the following 30 years or more.

95 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

The 2018 Brane-Cantenac opens with a super-classic bouquet of dried herbs, pencil shavings, licorice and mint. Medium in body and wonderfully nuanced, Brane-Cantenac marries the natural richness of the year with a classic structural feel. This is one of the most elegant, restrained 2018s readers will come across. I loved it.

95 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Aromas of mushroom, meat, bark and iodine with blackberries and blackcurrants, following through to a full body with firm, creamy tannins that give structure and form to the wine. Tight on the finish. Long and persistent with presence. Drink after 2025.

95 Jane Anson - Inside Bordeaux

This is a serious wine, with well constructed walls and floor, but it's full of life too, with brambled, succulent and generously-extracted fruit on the nose. It has less immediate charm than some in the appellation and will take a while to come round, but it has clear ageing ability and is one to savour. You feel the precision and confidence in how it presents itself. 1% Petit Verdot makes up the blend - there was no Carmenère in the grand vin in 2018. 45hl/ha yield. 70% new oak.

95 Lisa Perrotti-Brown - The Wine Independent

Brane-Cantenac 2018 is deep garnet purple in color. It offers a perfumed nose of lilacs and spice box, over a core of warm cassis, preserved plums, and forest floor, with a hint of crushed rocks. Full-bodied, rich, and with wonderfully velvety tannins, it has a lively backbone and a very long mineral-tinged finish.

95 Jane Anson - Inside Bordeaux

Generous yet balanced, plenty to sink your teeth into here, this is a Brane Cantenac that knows exactly where it is going, and that has kept a Margaux effortlessness even in the heat and drought of the summer. You feel the warmth in telltale sweetness of the fruits - blackberry puree, cassis fruit pastilles, plenty of bitter black chocolate and liqourice, but it never loses its juice, and keeps momentum through the palate. No Carmenère in the blend in this vintage.

98+ Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

The 2019 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is an incredible wine, and it flirts with perfection. Full-bodied and concentrated, it has flawless balance and elegance as well as just textbook Howell Mountain notes of blue fruits, cassis, violets, graphite, and background oak. I love its tannins, it has remarkable purity of fruit, and a great, great finish. It has some appeal today yet deserves 4-5 years of bottle age and should have over two decades of longevity.

97 Decanter

Winemaker Sean Capiaux has crafted this Howell Mountain staple for more than two decades. In 2019, he's made a knockout! Explosive aromas of ripe, black fruit, wild mountain sage, turned earth and toasty oak. Enveloping on the palate with an intricate mix of black cherry, blackberry and blueberry fruit moving quickly into more savoury notes of crushed stones, cassis, wildflowers. Finishing long and with vibrancy and lift. A powerful core of firm fine-grained tannins are nicely integrated. Great cellar potential.

87 Gilbert & Gaillard

« Deep ruby-red with crimson reflections. Nose of red and black fruits with touches of liquorice and pepper. Expressive palate driven by ripe fruit. The middle palate displays very refined tannins followed by a long refreshing finish. Works with grills. »

95-96 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Very fine tannins with blackberry, mint and bark character. Medium to full body. Polished and caressing texture. Exciting.

90-92 William Kelley - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2022 La Cabanne saw malolactic fermentation in tank, as this estate is evolving in a less heavy-handed direction. Revealing aromas of cherries, dark berries and licorice, it's medium to full-bodied, fleshy and supple, with a seamless, charming profile.

97 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

Coming from a mix of noteworthy sites in the valley and mostly Cabernet (there's some Merlot in the blend, I believe), the 2018 Napa Valley Red Wine sports a dense purple color to go with a full-bodied, opulent, monster of a wine that carries loads of red and black fruits, notes of spiced meats, dried tobacco, and chocolate, ripe tannins, integrated oak, and a wonderfully mouth-filling texture. This is about as opulent and sexy as 2018 gets and it's well worth seeing out. It's going to put a smile on your face any time over the coming 15-20 years.

93 Wine Spectator

"Lovely aromas and flavors of ripe black cherry and currant fruit, graphite, toast and candied Meyer lemon zest are set in this racy Champagne, with a refined, finely detailed mousse. The mouthwatering finish is long and spicy. Drink now through 2022."

91+ John Gilman - View from the Cellar

"While I am not certain that there are still different bottlings of this wine for different markets, it was certainly the policy of the Grandes Marques up until very recently to have slightly different versions of their non-vintage Bruts for various locales. I am guessing that the bottling of Bollinger 'Speciale Cuvée' for the American market still has a touch more dosage than the French bottling (the US almost always used to get sweeter versions of Brut than other markets), as this seemed to have its steely structural elements just a bit more buffered out of the blocks, and though the two wines are quite similar qualitatively, there is little doubt that for immediate drinking, this is the more pleasurable version than its French counterpart. The bouquet is excellent, offering up scents of apple, warm bread, a touch of orange zest, lovely minerality and a gentle topnote of smokiness. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, crisp and beautifully balanced, with refined mousse, crisp acids and excellent length and grip on the complex and poised finish. To my palate, the dosage here is perfectly measured to seamlessly buffer the lovely acidity here and the wine just dances across the palate. High class non-vintage Brut. 2013-2025+." (08/13)

90 Allen Meadows - Burghound

"An expressive and attractively layered nose offers up notes of brioche, yeast and baked apple scents. Much like the Brut Rosé the effervescence is prominent to the point of being foamy yet it is not aggressive as the bead is quite fine on the moderately complex, round and delicious flavors that deliver fine if not truly exceptional persistence on the intensely yeasty finish." (09/12)

90 Wine & Spirits

"At every turn of flavor, barrel-fermented base wines add opulence to this Champagne with scents of apple wood, ginger and mustard seed balancing the youthful fruit. The flavors buzz with acidity and richness, a contrast of green apple with broader notes of baked apple; the texture is creamy, the finish completely clean. The wine’s structure is substantial enough to serve with sliced, seared beef filet at a holiday party." (12/13)

96-98+ Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

Another wine that's going to flirt with perfection is the 2022 Château Pavie Macquin, and this might be the finest vintage I've ever tasted from this address. A blend of 80% Merlot, 19% Cabernet Franc, and a splash of Cabernet Sauvignon, it reveals an inky purple hue as well as a stunning bouquet of pure cassis, liquid black raspberries, truffle, scorched earth, and graphite. Full-bodied, concentrated, and massive on the palate, it may be the largest-scaled Pavie Macquin ever produced. But don't let that scare you off – it stays flawlessly balanced, has pure, fine-grained tannins, and a great finish. I'll be a buyer.

96-98+ Lisa Perrotti-Brown - The Wine Independent

The 2022 Pavie Macquin, 65% Merlot and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, is deep garnet-purple in color. It is quite closed to start off, revealing scents of cedar chest and dried roses before giving way to a fragrant undercurrent of blackberry pie, Morello cherries, and boysenberry preserves, plus suggestions of Indian spices and cast-iron pan. The full-bodied palate is super-taut and muscular, delivering a firm frame of ripe, grainy tannins and fantastic tension to support all the tightly wound layers, finishing very long and minerally. Likely to require considerable patience before it hits its stride, its a Pavie Macquin for marathon runners, not sprinters.

98 Jane Anson - Inside Bordeaux

Creamy depths of colour and flavour, powerful damson and black cherry fruits, this is utterly compelling and beautifully concentrated. No question that the tannins are crowding in through the front of the palate, eager to make an impression, but they quickly soften and widen, and in between is air, spice, flowers, just nuanced and beautiful. The power of limestone in hot vintages on display. 3.4ph, great stuff from this 14.5ha estate, Nicolas Thienpont director.

95-97 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

The 2022 Pavie Macquin is a gorgeous wine, not quite as exotic as it can be, which will no doubt please those who find this wine on the richer side within the context of Saint-Émilion. Dark red fruit, chalk, mint, white pepper and spice all race across the palate. Given the small size of the berries and the heat, the winemaking team led by Nicolas Thienpont opted for gentler vinification with fewer punchdowns than the past. The result is a decidedly linear, vibrant Pavie Macquin that bristles with the chalky, saline energy that is a signature of this part of Saint-Émilion, but that has not always been present in a wine that in the past has been more about textural opulence. The blend is 80% Merlot, 19% Cabernet Franc and 1% Cabernet Sauvignon. Tasted four times.

94-96 William Kelley - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

This site can deliver such powerful, tannic wines that I was left especially impressed by the supple, harmonious style of the 2022 Pavie Macquin. Unwinding in the glass with notions of sweet wild berries, rose petals, spices, violets, bay leaf and new oak, it's full-bodied, deep and vibrant, with a layered core of fruit, bright acids and a long, penetrating finish, where powdery structuring tannins make themselves felt but without any asperity. Of course, this remains a deep and powerful wine, but Nicolas Thienpont and his team continue their shift toward more judicious extraction, with excellent results.

96 Georgina Hindle - Decanter

Perfumed and aromatic, smells rich but not too intensely with roses and soft purple flowers. Succulent and really quite crisp and clear, such clarity to the fruit, with both a sharpness of acidity and mineral bite to the tannins. Liquorice, blue fruits, cool chalky tones. You get a sense of the power and structure, it’s wide and full, thick but keeping the freshness and tension with super high acidity giving the mouthwatering nature and a touch of austerity. Precise and detailed with energy and tension as well as depth and clarity. Great potential. A yield of 31hl/ha. Harvest 23 September - 11 October. Ageing 16 months; 70% new barrels, 30% one wine. Derenoncourt consultants.

95 Lisa Perrotti-Brown - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, the 2016 Gazin features a beautifully perfumed nose of violets, Ceylon tea, cigar box, sandalwood and fallen leaves over a core of plum preserves, kirsch and blackberry preserves plus a waft of aniseed. Medium-bodied and elegant, with compelling restraint, it has a seductively plush texture, finishing with bags of poise, perfume and persistence. Drink 2022-2045

96 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

The 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon Howell Mountain is another impressive wine from O'Shaughnessy Estate Winery. Bright acids and beams of tannin run through a core of dark red/purplish Howell Mountain fruit. Potent yet refined, the 2021 is a fine effort. Blueberry jam, plum, lavender, chocolate and graphite all build into the huge, vibrant finish.

89 Anne Krebiehl MW - Vinous Media

The 2022 Zind is a blend of two-thirds Chardonnay and one-third Auxerrois from the Triassic limestone soils in the Clos Windsbuhl. The nose shines with fresh, ripe, juicy yellow apple fringed with lovely zestiness. This is light-bodied, sunny, medium-bodied, fruity and fresh, with Chardonnay's added textural pleasure. (Bone-Dry)

92 Monica Larner - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The Podere Scopetone 2018 Brunello di Montalcino has a soft and gentle character that is well suited to the more immediate or near-term profile of the vintage. There is sour cherry and plum at the start, and the wine maintains that rather tart and fresh personality throughout. Only in the palate are those flavors fleshed out by heavier notes of tobacco, cola and grilled herb. At the end, the wine reverts back to those bitter fruit flavors. Only 6,120 bottles were made.

91 Decanter

At lofty elevations near the town of Montalcino, Scopetone totals five hectares. From the now 40-year-old vines, owners Loredana Tanganelli and Antonio Brandi carve out 7,000 bottles of Brunello annually. with forest underbrush, walnut and wet earth, this 2018 makes way for more lifted tones of pressed cherry blossom. Midweight and lightly structured, it flows effortlessly though is still tight through the core. Not an obvious wine, but it has length and balance.