Wine Spectator: Solidly built, with notes of singed vanilla bean and a flicker of espresso framing the core of plum, red currant and steeped cherry fruit. Toasty but sleek, with a perfumy edg...

Wine Spectator: Rounded and ripe, with dark blackberry and boysenberry flavors melded with ganache, melted black licorice and Black Forest cake. Lush, but with a lovely smoldering charcoal hi...

Wine Spectator: This has a really nice graphite frame that drives the core of fig, plum and boysenberry fruit authoritatively, with dense ganache, espresso and tar on the finish. The grip is ...

Wine Spectator: This is quite ripe, with almost flashy plum, raspberry and boysenberry flavors, but they stay focused and driven, with mouthwatering anise and apple wood notes that cut throug...

Wine Spectator: Solidly built, with thickly layered fig, blueberry and açaí berry flavors pumping along, supported by still-chewy ganache and tobacco notes. An accent of roasted apple wood dr...

Wine Spectator: Plump and enticing, with a mouthwatering anise note that pulls you in quickly before delivering waves of blueberry, açaí berry and plum fruit, followed by bouncy spice and flo...

About this Wine: Area  : 2.19 hectares (5.41 acres)
Soil : clay, limestone
Grape varieties : 76% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Franc
Average age of the vines : 32 years
Grape harvest: ...

Wine Spectator: Very fresh, with a pure essence of raspberry and kirsch racing along, laced with an enticing red licorice note that drives through the finish. Rather direct, but well put toge...

Wine Spectator: A fresh and fruity wine, with blackberry and cherry character, medium body and a clean finish. Pretty and delicious. Second wine of Cheval-Blanc. Drink now through 2006. (JS)

Wine Spectator: This expressive red delivers floral, vanilla, red berry and licorice aromas and flavors that are bright and focused. Offers firm tannins and fresh acidity. Vivid and long, in ...

Wine Spectator: Starts slow but picks up steam in a hurry, with toasted anise, plum cake and fig notes which are darker and richer in profile than most Pomerols in 2011. Nice fleshy feel thro...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: Recently acquired by the owners of La Fleur Cardinale, Dominique and Florence Decoster, this is a 19-acre estate located in the sector of St.-Emilion known as St.-Etienne de L...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: A major sleeper of the vintage, this blend of equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot is another "best ever" performance. Notes of tobacco leaf, hot rocks, sweet kirsch and ...

Wine Spectator: Lush and open, with lots of velvety plum coulis, blackberry paste and dark cherry notes, and ample anise and graphite on the finish. Rich, but sleek too.-J.M.

Neal Martin's Wine Journal: The Cruzelles is a blend of 90% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Franc picked between the 5th and 12th September and 19th September respectively. It is being aged in 50% new oak. It ha...

About this Wine: Purchased in 1998 from the daughter of the local blacksmith - hence the name - the initial vineyard was primarily based on a gravel outcrop, assembled over the generations wit...

Stephen Tanzer's IWC: (a 65/35 blend of merlot and cabernet franc): Bright medium ruby. Blackberry, cassis, bitter chocolate and espresso on the nose, with cabernet franc notes of violet and lico...

Wine Spectator: Lots of bouncy acidity here, with a nice range of blue and black fruits and and mouthwatering pain d'épices note on the toasted finish.-J.M.

Wine Spectator: This solid red has a nice fleshy edge to its red and black currant fruit, laced with hints of coffee, maduro tobacco and iron. The finish firms up as the toast takes over. Dri...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: Gros is a notorious late harvester and naturalist, and his 2011 La Fleur Morange Mathilde (100% Merlot) is bottled early in order to give consumers a joyous, fruit-driven, hed...