Less celebrated than 2009 and 2010, and you can feel the fruit is a little less intense through the mid-palate. Heaped with blackberry and morello cherries, the fruit is carefully placed though, well balanced and with...

(WE93-95 points) A firm and tannic wine, it has the weight to support its tannins. It's balanced, solid and dense, with a powerful shot of black fruits.

The brilliant 2011 Troplong Mondot is one of the superstars of the vintage. The final blend was 89% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Sauvignon and 2% Cabernet Franc, and the wine tips the scales at 14.5% alcohol. Its opaque...

The opaque blue/purple-colored 2011 Palmer reveals a stunning bouquet of licorice, truffles, camphor, spring flowers, black raspberries and black currants. One of the superstars of the vintage, this brilliant 2011...

So smooth, this is a rich, grandiose wine. Although it is full of black currant fruits and spice flavors, the texture is most impressive. Dusty tannins are integrated with juicy fruits seamlessly. The purest fruit flavors...

A solidly structured wine, it is both elegant and intensely powerful. It is disclosing its fruitiness slowly, at the moment dense and concentrated. A restrained edge provides complexity and balance. It will need aging, so...

The 2011 d'Alceo is fascinating to taste next to the Sammarco, as it is much more open-knit, silky and expressive. Cherry jam, pomegranate, spice and new leather flesh out in the glass. The integration of fruit, tannin...

Beautifully balanced, this opens with alluring scents of wild berry, rose, baking spice and whiffs of chopped herb. Seamlessly combining ripe fruit and the firm's trademark finesse, the bright elegantly structured palate...

This is typical of the ripe and opulent style of this property with superripe black currant fruit. It's concentrated in flavor, but also structured with smooth tannins. It's a wine both for short-term fruitiness and...

One of the clear standouts where the fruit has real depth and is laced with black chocolate, liquorice, cassis as well as cassis bud. Cabernet dominant, will some angularity to the tannins but this is high quality, and...

(94-96). Barrel sample. Showing a judicious blend of new wood and ripe fruit, this is a wine that has a creamed-apple texture. It's full of bright grapefruit, sweet apple and green plum flavors.

A solidly structured wine, it is both elegant and intensely powerful. It is disclosing its fruitiness slowly, at the moment dense and concentrated. A restrained edge provides complexity and balance. It will need aging, so...

A more refined expression than in La Chapelle, but I would strongly recommend going for La Chapelle right now. as these tannins remain fairly closed at the moment. Great future ahead, a sculpted and finessed expression of...

92+ I love the elegance of good Petite Chapelle, and this is a characteristic that the 2011 from Maison Louis Jadot certainly exudes on both the nose and palate. The classic bouquet delivers a lovely mélange of cherries...

(WE94-96 points) Big and powerful this is a wine that is supported by dense tannins. The feeling is dry and firm with a brooding black-currant character.

A great success for the vintage, this wine is firmly structured and expressive, bringing out a dark structure, ripe tannins and swathes of black fruits. Further generosity will develop as the wine matures. Drink from...

The 2011 Proprietary Red Paradise Hills Vineyard is super-elegant and graceful right out of the gate. Red fruit, blood orange, menthol, spice, lavender and rose petals abound in this gracious and nuanced red. Light on its...

This wine is based on tannins yet it also has weight and a complex fruit structure. Its power lies in the density of its texture.

This complex wine has rich tannins and layers of new wood atop dark black berries. At the same time, it is rounding out well, offering spice, sweet acidity and a terse freshness that is infectious. It's a very fruity wine...

This is the first vintage of Jacques Thienpont's new wine, over the border in St-Émilion. Eight hectares of 30-year-old vines, harvested three weeks later than at Le Pin. 80% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc. Spicy, ripe and...

Clos Fourtet is a continuing success. This 2011 is both rich and seriously structured. Ripe, with a mineral character, it starts firm and then shows generous blackberry fruits. Still young, it should not be drunk before 2018.

The structure remains fairly closed, with the emphasis on floral notes. Elegant raspberry fruits, finessed, crushed stone and slate texture, with gentle peony and smoke aromatics. It suits the style of Armailhac as it was...

(91-92) Scents of creme de cassis, chocolate, and nutmeg entice from the glass of Liger-Belair’s 2011 Moulin-a-Vent La Roche, though the torrefactive aspect here is no doubt prompted in large part by the wine’s low-sulfur...

A Duhart that was particularly subdued when young, it is continuing to develop and will be even better in two or three years. Plenty of juice, dark fruits and firm tannins. It's a wine with so much freshness that you get...

Features an iron spine that keeps the plum sauce, blackberry and currant fruit in check, with flickers of tobacco and charcoal on the finish. Best from 2015 through 2021. — JM

(100% cabernet sauvignon, from fruit harvested between October 28 and November 3; 63% new oak): Good red-ruby. Intriguing scents of currant, cherry, mocha, pepper, brown spices and garrigue. Peppery and penetrating...

Another excellent to outstanding effort from the Nony family, the 2011 Grand-Mayne offers up beautifully sweet raspberry and blueberry fruit intermixed with crushed rock-like notes as well as a jammy character (unusual in...

The savoury, floral edge of Cabernet on gravel is fully on display, and it needs time in the glass to soften and unroll. After a few minutes, the smoky side comes out, and the lean but concentrated berry fruit, although...