Decanter (100)

Enjoyed over dinner in Burgundy after tasting many truly lovely wines, this wine could erase your memory of anything else. It is a riveting tour-de-force, with a medium lemon-yellow colour and heady, incredibly forward aromas of ripe orchard and stone fruit with exotic spices, butter, and a bit of oak. There is fresh acidity, plenty of body and extract, and incredible finesse and elegance as well. The combination of youthful fruit, fresh acidity, and robust density carry this wine to an interminable finish.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2010 Proprietary Red Cariad reveals great intensity along with abundant notes of unsmoked tobacco leaf interwoven with blueberry, blackberry and cassis fruit, charcoal and coffee bean nuances as well as a Pauillac-like lead pencil shaving character. This blend of 48% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 10% Petit Verdot and 14% Cabernet Franc is one of the finest wines I tasted over the 12 days I spent tasting in Napa Valley in late August and early September. This remarkable 2010 should drink beautifully for 20 or more years.

Vinous (100)

The highlight in this range today, the 2016 Cariad is utterly magnificent. Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot give the wine soaring aromatic intensity and striking savoriness to play off the racy, forward fruit. Time in barrel has done wonders to meld all the elements together. Today, the Cariad is dense, explosive and super-expressive. And yet my sense is that the 2016 still has quite a bit of room to grow. Even at this early stage, the 2016 is a total stunner. The symbiosis of David Abreu fruit and Allision Tauziet's winemaking makes for an electric, unforgettable 2016. Don't miss it.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2010 IX Estate is another perfect wine. Its opaque purple color is accompanied by copious aromas of blueberries, cassis, pen ink, asphalt, licorice and subtle oak. Full-bodied and rich but light on its feet, this spectacular effort was created from a blend of 63% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc and 6% Petit Verdot. Enjoy this profound wine over the next 25+ years.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

An absolute beast of a wine, the 2013 Ix Estate checks in as a mix of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot that’s all from the estate located at the top of Pritchard Hill. Still a primordial wine that reminds me of a barrel sample, its vivid, saturated purple color is followed by an incredible bouquet of black and blue fruits, graphite, spring flowers, and scorched earth. With a deep, full-bodied, massive mid-palate, background oak, and beautiful purity and freshness, it’s a tour de force and may be the most massive yet perfectly balanced wine I’ve ever tasted. It’s incredible today in an academic sort of way, but it won’t start to hit maturity for at least another decade. Hats off to superstar winemaker Allison Tauziet who, in this critic’s opinion, fashions some of the most profound and captivating wines on the planet!

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

Another perfect wine from this estate is the 2015 IX Estate which is 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Cabernet Franc, 15% Merlot and the rest Petit Verdot. This inky purple-colored beauty has everything: incredible aromatics, huge richness, insane purity, and a singular character that needs to be tasted to be believed. Crème de cassis, blueberries, violets, flowers, and lead pencil shaving-like notes all soar from the glass and it hits the palate with a youthful, full-bodied, beautifully concentrated style that builds incrementally, has fine tannin, and integrated acidity. It needs 4-5 years of bottle age but will keep for 3-4 decades.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2016 IX Proprietary Red Estate is a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Cabernet Franc, 10% Merlot and 7% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet-purple, it comes strutting out of the glass with flamboyant Black Forest cake, blueberry compote and plum pudding notions plus hints of spice cake, unsmoked cigars, menthol, licorice and dusty soil and accented by wafts of tar and black tea. The palate is full-bodied yet incredibly poised and vibrant with amazing freshness and very fine-grained, very firm tannins. It possesses the most provocative earthy sparks, providing arresting depth to the very long, beautifully perfumed finish. Stunning.

The Wine Independent (100)

The 2018 IX Estate is deep purple-black in color. It gives up crushed blueberries, fresh blackcurrants, and black cherry preserves with an evocative undercurrent of licorice, sandalwood, clove oil, and cumin seed plus a waft of iron ore. The full-bodied palate is firm, tightly wound, and so, so intense, featuring exquisitely ripe, fine-grained tannins and seamless freshness, finishing very long and opulent.

James Suckling (100)

Ripe cherries, plums and flowers on the nose. Orange peel, too, together with hints of thyme, bay leaf and sage. Medium-to full-bodied, incredibly deep and fresh, with fine tannins that carry you deep down into the finish. It tells you its great, but makes you spend time in order to understand it. Reminds me of the 1990 Latour. Try after 2027.

James Suckling (100)

Ripe cherries, plums and flowers on the nose. Orange peel, too, together with hints of thyme, bay leaf and sage. Medium-to full-bodied, incredibly deep and fresh, with fine tannins that carry you deep down into the finish. It tells you its great, but makes you spend time in order to understand it. Reminds me of the 1990 Latour. Try after 2027.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2010 IX Estate Syrah is one of the most compelling Syrahs ever made in California. It ranks alongside some of the perfect Syrahs from Sine Qua Non in Santa Ynez and the Santa Rita Hills. Tasting like liquified steak au poive with blackberry and blueberry sauce, this amazing wine reveals staggering aromas of flowers, bouquet garni, melted asphalt, licorice, pepper and meaty notes. It should drink well for 15+ years assuming you have that much patience.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

Lastly, the 2016 Syrah IX Estate reminds me of the otherworldly 2010 and is as profound as Syrah gets. Tasting like Guigal’s Côte Rôtie La Mouline (maybe on steroids) with its huge notes of bacon fat, spring flowers, blue fruits, barbecued meats, and incense, it’s full-bodied and massive yet also thrillingly pure, seamless, elegant, and weightless. It’s certainly approachable today yet is going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and keep for two decades.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

The 2018 Syrah from this estate is another majestic example of the variety and actually reminds me of the 2010. Gorgeous blackberry and blue fruits, notes of bacon fat, bouquet garni, and peppered game, full-bodied richness, and flawless balance all make for a captivating Syrah that can be drunk today or cellared for 15+ years. It’s as good as anything out there.

James Suckling (100)

Crushed stone, berry and lead pencil. Flintlock and iodine, too. Full-bodied, very tight and focused with incredible depth and intensity. Sculpted and intense. Incredible. Silky and tight tannins. Great finish. Reminds me of the 1978 La Chapelle. This needs three or four years to come together.

Wine Enthusiast (100)

This perfumed wine opens with layers of scents, including violet, woodland berries, new leather, forest floor and warm spices. Smooth and elegantly structured, the savory palate boasts juicy black-skinned berry, blood orange, licorice, tobacco and the barest hint of coffee bean alongside taut, fine-grained tannins. Bright acidity keeps it impeccably balanced. Drink 2026–2046.

The Wine Independent (100)

Deep garnet in color, the 2016 Cos d'Estournel is quite closed to start, requiring a lot of coaxing to bring out profound notions of creme de cassis, wild blueberries, black cherry compote, and rose oil, leading to suggestions of Indian spices, crushed rocks, and dried lavender. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is both opulent and energetic, revealing loads of perfumed black fruit layers and a plush, polished texture, finishing with epic length and depth.

Wine Advocate (100)

It's an historical wine, a one-off, semi-sweet white produced at the end of the Spanish Civil War, a wine impossible to replicate, fruit of impossible circumstances, a wine I've had the luck to drink and share with many people on a number of occasions and which never fails to impress everyone. The perfect 1939 CVNE Rioja Blanco Semi Dulce Corona is a mythical wine! 1939 saw the end of Spain's Civil War, and the country was upside down. There were some major battles fought in Rioja, and by the time they had to harvest the grapes, there were not enough men in the village. They must have focused on the best parcels, surely giving priority to red grapes. Some vineyards were overlooked, as happened with the whites that eventually produced this wine. These grapes were harvested extremely late, into November, close to December and their health was not optimal, they had developed some botrytis and were clearly rotten. The people in charge of making the wine surely didn't know about botrytis cynerea, or noble rot, and were surely afraid their grapes were rotten and they would not be able to produce any decent white. So they did the best they could, but the fermentation never finished completely and there was some residual sugar in the wine. So, as they did with all their wines, they put it in oak barrels to mature and kind of put it in a corner hoping nobody would notice its shortcomings. We have to realize that CVNE was already producing quite a lot of wine at the time, so it's not unusual to have a few stray barrels here or there that nobody pays attention to. What is not that normal is that the wine was REALLY forgotten and was "found" during a stock take for an audit in 1970! So the wine aged slowly in barrel for some 30 years! Once found, nobody saw any reason to keep the wine in barrel any longer, so they decided to bottle it. Not knowing quite what to do with it, the bottles were stacked somewhere and the same story was repeated, as the stash was forgotten and basically untouched until thirty something years later: thanks to the daughter of one of the family owners (the winery is still in the hand of the same family that created it back in 1879). The proud father had a vague idea about a somewhat sweet wine that could be served at his daughter's wedding and asked to get some bottles to taste. They uncorked it, tasted it and found a complex, subtle white with great balance between alcohol, acidity and a little bit of residual sugar (around 20 grams), which took the edge off the acidity and made the wine rounder, as old Viura can be too austere. The slow aging, first in an oxidative way during the years in oak provided some nuttiness, and spicy aromas, while the botrytis added some of those dry apricot, beeswax and pollen notes, hinting on honey, but also the long reductive period in bottle made it very elegant and polished, with infinite nuances of white pepper, quince, faint smoke, walnuts, petrol...This redefines complexity, elegance and slow aging. The palate is prodigious, with a gobsmacking (literally!) balance, pungent flavors, freshness, acidity, very faint sweetness and length like only something which has slowly evolved over 70 years can be. The aftertaste should not be measured in seconds, but in minutes, and the empty glass keeps changing and giving different tones for hours. If you leave a little bit in the bottle for the day after (yes, it's difficult, I know!) the wine is even better on the second day. There is no reason to believe that if the wine is as good as it is today it is not going to reach its one-hundredth birthday. The wine is mainly Viura, but there might have been a little bit of the white Garnacha Blanca in the blend. At this stage nobody really knows (or cares). This is simply otherworldly, superb, perfect wine, whose only improvement would come if they had bottled some magnums! A dream. A unique, historical wine. If there is a perfect white Rioja, this is surely it. Anticipated maturity: 2015-2039.

James Suckling (100)

This is black as pitch in the glass and, yes, there’s a light, tarry edge to the super-concentrated prune, date and currant fruit. But even more interesting are the complex notes of bitter-orange liqueur, aged balsamic, fresh roasting herbs, cinnamon, roasted chestnuts, black tea and licorice. The more you decant in advance, the more nuances will emerge. It’s full-boded with huge concentration and lots of chewy tannin that is managing to hold the fruit back for now. This needs plenty of time to develop in the bottle. Just superb. One of the greatest Dal Forno’s ever.

Wine Advocate (100)

As stunning as this basic Cabernet Sauvignon is, the 2002 Maya, a proprietary blend of 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Cabernet Franc, is pure perfection. It boasts an inky purple color as well as an extraordinary perfume of incense, black fruits, charcoal and forest floor. Full-bodied, with monumental intensity, a multidimensional texture/mouthfeel, and a stunning finish, this beauty reveals the brilliant quality of the Dalla Valle Cabernet Franc plantings meshed with their powerful Cabernet Sauvignon. Anticipated maturity: 2018-2040+.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

Another perfect wine from this brilliant estate, the 2013 Maya Proprietary Red Wine is a majestic, concentrated, flawless beauty that brings complexity, elegance, and power like few wines. Still youthful ruby/purple, it offers a smorgasbord-like array of red and blue fruits, flowers, chocolate, spice box, and tobacco. These all build beautifully with time in the glass, and it hits the palate with full-bodied richness that carries polished, silky tannins, a wonderfully layered, multi-dimensional texture, and incredible purity as well as balance, with everything in the right place. It's certainly in its drink window, yet youthful and unevolved. It has another 30 years or more of prime drinking ahead of it.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

The 2016 Maya offers another level of depth and density and is a truly special, magical wine. A blend of 66% Cabernet Sauvignon and 33% Cabernet Franc, it boasts off the chart notes of blackcurrants, Asian spices, lead pencil, chocolate, and incense. These all give way to a massively concentrated, rich, and powerful wine that nevertheless stays oh, so seamless, silky and pure, with a finish that goes on for minutes. Utterly profound in every way, this sensational wine hits every high point you could ever set for a glass of wine. it's one of the top 2-3 wines in this report. Hide bottles for 7-8 years and it will keep for 3-4 decades.

Jeb Dunnuck (100)

A smaller production cuvée from a single parcel of the estate vineyard, the 2018 Maya Proprietary Red Wine is the normal 60/40 split of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon brought up in a mix of new and used barrels. Incredibly perfumed with complex notes of blue fruits, flowers, loamy earth, graphite, and tobacco, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, polished, silky tannins, no hard edges, and a finish that won’t quit. While this is a rich, concentrated wine, it’s the complexity, elegance, and finesse that define this cuvée, which is going to benefit from just short-term cellaring and cruise for 2-3 decades.

The Wine Independent (100)

A blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Cabernet Franc, the 2019 Maya comes bounding out of the glass with exuberant scents of wild blueberries, Morello cherries, boysenberry preserves, and chocolate box, followed by hints of star anise, cardamom, and dusty red soil. Full-bodied, concentrated, and powerful, the tannins are firm yet velvety, while a remarkable burst of freshness lifts the decadent fruit. It finishes with an epically long mineral firework display. Dalla Valle’s Maya comes from a dedicated section of the estate vineyard, located in the valley’s eastern foothills, below Pritchard Hill, and above the Oakville benchlands, overlooking Screaming Eagle and Rudd vineyard.

James Suckling (100)

This shows amazing freshness and depth of fruit while remaining agile and very clean. Full body, dense and layered on the palate. Goes on for minutes with each sip. Lots of mineral and chalk character too. A fabulous Champagne. A blend of half Pinot Noir and half Chardonnay.

Vinous (100)

The 1999 La Tâche Grand Cru can be a perfect wine. This was very similar to the bottle opened in 2015. The bouquet sends you straight to heaven with so much purity and detail that frankly it is difficult to put into words. Fleeting glimpses of redcurrant, then pomegranate, broom and wilted rose petals, later more earthy scents, autumnal. The palate is perfectly balanced with filigree tannin, a symmetry that is utterly entrancing and precision second to none. Hints of black plum and blood orange, that mineralité returning towards a finish so tensile you risk cutting yourself. I would have given this my second score had the 1999 Romanée-Conti been in the next glass. Tasted at the 1999 DRC dinner.

Vinous (100)

The 2005 La Tâche is simply magnificent. There is not too much I can add. Deep, powerful and richly textured, the 2005 simply has it all. Time in the glass releases the aromatics, but it is the wine’s pure sensuality I find most enticing. A host of dark red and blue stone fruits, hard candy and wild flowers take center stage. Even with all of its intensity, the 2005 retains striking freshness and purity. Can it get better than this?

Decanter (100)

Medium-full weight. Very lovely, almost Musigny-like fruit here. Complex, concentrated and intense. Marvelous harmony. Very, very long and multi-dimensional. This is very special.

Decanter (100)

Medium-full weight. Very lovely, almost Musigny-like fruit here. Complex, concentrated and intense. Marvelous harmony. Very, very long and multi-dimensional. This is very special.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2016 Romanée-Conti Grand Cru is a worthy successor to the profound 2015, wafting from the glass with aromas of wild berries, violets, peony, dark chocolate, cinnamon and exotic spices. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and satiny, with an ineffable sense of completeness, searing concentration without weight, a vibrant, indeed animating line of acidity, and a long, expansive finish that concludes with a judicious touch of mouthwatering bitterness. Wines like this are the foundation of the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's reputation.

Decanter (100)

Picked at the same time as La Tâche on 17 September, Romanée-Conti is following a different arc of evolution. Tasted out of barrel, the wine was perfection itself. I remember being struck by the explosive nature of the aromas and their range from high-toned red fruit to darker black fruit and the shading delivered by notes of while herb, mineral, and earth. None of that has disappeared, but the ensemble is less expressively aromatic than it was from barrel. The wine seems to be going quiet, although on the palate the enormous extract, density and well-managed tannins are all still in evidence. It is certain it will be worth the wait.