2004 Wine

jamessuckling.com, 95 points: A very fine-textured Champagne with lovely density and finesse. The bubbles roll off the palate. Full body. Extremely creamy and flavorful. Shows wonderful finesse and a lovely, chalky, lemon-curd and brioche aftertaste...

Wine Enthusiast, 92 points: Epitomizes the lush, immediately approachable style, with a mouthfeel so creamy it almost seems liquorous or syrupy. The flavors are ultraclean and precise, marrying crème de cassis with vanilla and hints of coconut. Soft...

Wine Spectator, 93 points: A big, rich, intense and tightly focused style, with layers of red cherry, wild berry, earth, mineral and savory herbs and spices. Picks up a nice touch of anise and ends with firm, ripe, integrated tannins, with a dash...

Burghound, 91 points: A surprisingly airy and like the La Justice, very pinot nose that is both elegant and transparent dissolves into supple, detailed and quite finely balanced middle weight flavors that are both delicious yet serious and...

Wine Enthusiast, 93 points: A powerfully ripe wine, with pure black currant flavors over soft, polished tannins. The wood balance is exemplary, offering just the right lift. Touches of cinnamon and vanilla give an extra dimension.

Vinous, 90 points: Bright, deep cherry-red. Reduced nose dominated by dark fruits, smoke and gunflint, plus a whiff of matchstick. Then sweet and supple but reduced in the mouth, with wild, soil-driven flavors of dark cherry, smoke and...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 99 points: The flagship 2004 Run Rig is 96.5% Shiraz and 3.5% Viognier with the Shiraz component aged for 30 months in a mixture of new and used French oak. Yields were a minuscule 14 hl/ha (about 1 ton per acre). Saturated opaque...

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 99 points: The 2004 F.U. Shiraz (200 cases) is similarly brooding and liqueur-like. It spent 30 months in new French oak hogsheads and offers a compelling bouquet of toasty oak, pencil lead, mineral, blueberry, and blackberry...