"The 2014 Mouton-Rothschild was closed at first when I tasted the wine in bottle with winemaker Philippe Dhalluin. But as it transpires, this First...

"The 2009 Cristal Rosé is a rich and intense expression of Roederer's Cristal. Due to roughly 55% of old-vines Pinot Noir from Aÿ's calcareous clay...

"Made from a blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot and 4% Petit Verdot, this spectacular 2003 hits all the sweet spots on the palate. A glor...

"One of the stars of the vintage, the wine (100% Merlot) has exceptional concentration, stunning purity, an inky purple color and a broad, expansiv...

"Put your seatbelts on for the 2009 Scarecrow, which should end up rivaling their prodigious 2007. A wine of great intensity, an opaque purple colo...

"The 2014 Haut Brion is a blend of 50% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 39% Cabernet Sauvignon picked between 11 September and 10 October, cropped at...

"Sitting next to my former colleague, Pierre Antoine Rovani, at one of the tastings, he commented that he didn’t like the striking green note in th...

"A major sleeper of the vintage and a great effort, the 2006 Mouton-Rothschild boasts abundant notes of crème de cassis, licorice, truffles, forest...

"This is an interesting as well as great vintage for Latour. As indicated in my barrel tasting report, Latour's 1994 possesses an atypically high p...

"Tasted blind in Bordeaux, the 1976 Chateau d'Yquem reaffirms its reputation as one of the great wines of the decade, although I would suggest that...

"Even better, and clearly the best wine made in the Haut-Brion stable in 2003 (the last vintage of the great Jean-Bernard Delmas as administrator),...

"Finally, the 1983 Lafite is beginning to shed its tannin. The wine exhibits a deep ruby/garnet color with only a slight lightening at the edge. Th...

"The finest La Gaffeliere I have ever tasted, the prodigious 2005 boasts a dense ruby/purple color in addition to a flamboyant bouquet of lead penc...

"Beautiful, elegant red, blue and black fruits (89% Cabernet Sauvignon and 11% Merlot) as well as some graphite and spice notes jump from the glass...

"This blockbuster was a sleeper of the vintage long before the Rothschilds invested so heavily in modernizing this estate as well as began making ...

"Tasted blind at the 1985 Bordeaux horizontal, the 1985 Château Haut Brion is a lovely wine at the peak of its powers. It has an elegant bouquet wi...

"A beauty, the opaque dense purple-colored 1995 exhibits jammy cassis, vanillin, and minerals in its fragrant but still youthful aromatics. Medium...

"The 1998, which is a candidate for the "Wine of the Vintage," was produced from yields of 0.9 tons per acre. There are only 1,100 cases, and it is...

"A beautiful L’Evangile and one of the vintage’s top successes, the color still retains a very dense ruby/purple with only a bit of lightening at ...

'The 2005 Les Forts de Latour is another beautiful wine from this estate. Medium to full-bodied, with a dense ruby/purple color, loads of blackcurr...

"The wine of the vintage? There are only 10,000 cases of this extraordinarily rich, dense 2002 that is as powerful as the 2003 (even the alcohol le...

"Sitting next to my former colleague, Pierre Antoine Rovani, at one of the tastings, he commented that he didn’t like the striking green note in th...

*no gift box "The 2009 Cristal Rosé is a rich and intense expression of Roederer's Cristal. Due to roughly 55% of old-vines Pinot Noir from Aÿ's ca...

"The 2013 Mouton-Rothschild has a conservative, straight-laced, tobacco-stained bouquet, nicely defined but lacking genuine depth. The palate is me...

"Tasted at the Mouton-Rothschild vertical in London, the 2012 Mouton-Rothschild clearly has the upper hand over the 2011, if not quite at the level...

"This is one of the more perplexing Latours to evaluate. It has plenty of sweetness as well as a gorgeous, rich fruitiness, but it lacks the firmne...

"Dense purple to the rim, this wine exhibits the classic cassis aroma that is so characteristic of Mouton. Medium to full-bodied, tannic, powerful,...

"The 2008 Romanee St. Vivant is pure seduction. The aromatics alone are breathtaking, but the RSV is truly firing on all cylinders. Curiously, toda...

"As one might expect, this is a brilliant wine, but it remains shockingly young, even for the fast evolving 1990s. Its deep ruby/purple color is ac...

"The 2009 Pinot Noir UV Vineyard reveals a medium ruby color with purple nuances that is clearly less saturated than the 2008 or 2007 Pinot Noirs. ...

"The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve is a slightly more brooding and formidably endowed effort displaying more extract, tannin and structure. In sp...

"In time, the profound 2008 Cheval Blanc will rank alongside this estate's great successes of 2005, 2000, and 1998. A harvest that began at the end...

"Giacosa's 1998 Barbaresco Asili needs 4-5 years of cellaring. It exhibits a dark ruby color along with a big, sweet nose of dried herbs, cedar, to...

"There are 6,500 cases of the superb 2006 Dominus (91% Cabernet Sauvignon, 6% Cabernet Franc, and 3% Petit Verdot). Its dark plum/purple color is a...

"Another extraordinary wine made in a backward vin de garde style, the 1995 Clinet represents the essence of Pomerol. The blackberry, cassis liqueu...

"Despite having over 40-plus acres of vineyards in the northeasterly sector of Napa just south of Calistoga, the production at Araujo remains relat...

"The 2010 Costa Russi is a vineyard-designate “Barbaresco” (although the wine’s addition of five percent Barbera prohibits it from being called suc...

"The unbelievably superb 2011 Haut-Brion (a tiny production of 7,600 cases from a blend of 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot, and 19% Cabernet Fra...

"A terrific effort from Administrator Frederic Engerer and owner Francois Pinault, the dark ruby/purple-tinged 2004 Latour exhibits a strong cassis...

"Jean-Hubert Delon thinks the 2001 Leoville Las Cases could turn out to be as good as his 2000. I’m not sure I agree, but it may come close. A blen...

"A nose of black raspberries interwoven with floral notes of blackcurrants and spice jump from the glass of this dense ruby/plum/purple wine. This ...

"A selection of the best barrels of this wine, representing only 110 cases or basically 41/2 barrels, is the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer La...