About this Wine: This wine will require 7-10 years of cellaring, then last for two decades thereafter.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate:  The exceptional 1996 Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon Mountain Blue (90% Shiraz and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon) exhibits a thick-l...

Wine Spectator: This is dark but racy and driven, with a gorgeous Turkish coffee note giving way to flavors of roasted fig, blackberry paste and baker's chocolate. Polished and seamless throu...

Wine Spectator: Ripe but very well-focused, with a lovely singed vanilla bean note guiding the delicious plum sauce, blackberry and cassis fruit. The long, pure, polished finish shows nicely ...

Wine Spectator: Offers lush fruit, with dark raspberry and boysenberry notes, good, graphite-laced structure and bright acidity weaving throughout. The long, smoldering finish features an app...

Wine Spectator: Dense and ripe, but sleek and tautly framed, with a nice iron edge to the plum sauce, blackberry preserve and tangy red currant fruit flavors. Long finish lets the minerality ...

Wine Spectator: This cuts a broad and creamy path, with lush blueberry fig and plum fruit all rolled together, backed by warm cocoa and anise notes. Toasty grip supports the finish but there'...

Wine Spectator: Quite muscular, with roasted tobacco leaf and charcoal notes up front, backed by a core of blackberry, cassis and plum sauce. Thick but velvety tannins cruise in on the finish...

Wine Spectator: Offers a density and lushness that belies the appellation, with a full, polished structure and deep plum, blackberry paste and steeped black cherry fruit flavors. The long, an...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Inky purple. Powerful blackberry and cassis aromas are complicated by suggestions of smoked meat, licorice and violet. Deeply concentrated, spice-accented cherry and dark be...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: A big, blockbuster, impressive Medoc made from an equal-part blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, this wine from Bernard Magrez has an opaque bluish/purple color, with copi...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Bright ruby-red. Suave nose offers blackberry, crushed stone and bitter chocolate. Dense, pliant and sweet, with a sappy concentration to the black fruit flavors. Finishes ...

Wine Spectator: Ripe and fleshy, but old-school, with tobacco, brick dust and cocoa notes framing the core of cassis, black cherry and linzer torte. There's a muscular edge on the finish, whe...

Wine Spectator: This is mouthwatering, with dark currant, fig and black cherry fruit offset by a riveting chalky spine and a long, iron-filled finish. There's great balance between the flesh ...

Burghound: A very ripe and notably earthy nose of cassis and black raspberry merges into round, rich and textured middle weight flavors that are very suave but have a sense that I can on...

Wine Spectator: Focused blackberry, currant and cherry sauce flavors show notes of sweet tobacco and nicely roasted spice on the finish, with integrated grip.-J.M.

John Gilman: The 2009 Gravains is cut from the riper side of the Pavelot ledger this year and really comes across as an exotic and exuberant 1990-like wine. The nose is a blend of black ra...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Good bright red-ruby. Blackberry and violet on the pure, vibrant nose. Denser and sweeter than the Aloxe-Corton, with crushed blackberry flavor framed by a firm edge of acid...

Wine Enthusiast: A massively rich, ripe, flamboyant wine. Huge in blackberries, cassis, smoked meat, leather, cocoa, pepper and sandalwood flavors that go on and on. Full-bodied, powerful, a h...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: Ruby-red. Perfumed aromas of blueberry and violet. Suave and fine-grained but not overly sweet. Finishes with smooth tannins and a smoky quality. 87-89 points