Ratings By Robert Parker 90 Tasting Notes While not as backward as the 1996, the opaque purple-colored 1995 is a tannic, unevolved, dense, concentrated wine that will require 8-10 years of cellaring. The 1995 exhibits pain grille, blackcurrant, mineral, and subtle tobacco in its complex yet youthful aromatics. Powerful, dense, concentrated cassis and blueberry flavors… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 92 Tasting Notes Typically extracted and powerful (which is atypical in a vintage such as 2008), this offering may lack charm, but it is ????locked and loaded?? with plenty of background oak, huge black cherry and black currant fruit, medium to full body and a boatload of tannin. Forget it for… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 89+ Tasting Notes This muscular, highly-extracted, structured 2007 reveals a boatload of tannin (unusual for this vintage). The wine??s dark ruby/purple color is followed by aromas of cassis, new saddle leather, and forest floor offered in a structured, backward, almost unapproachable format. Give it 2-3 years of cellaring, and if the… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 91+ Tasting Notes Not surprisingly, this wine is closed, masculine, but super-rich, with a denser, more complete and full-bodied style than its sibling, Langoa Barton. Some toasty vanillin is apparent in the black currant aromas intermixed with tobacco leaf, cedar, and spice box. The wine is full-bodied and has a boatload… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 94? Tasting Notes Another prodigious, but brutally tannic, offering from the affable Anthony Barton, the inky/blue/black-hued 2005 Leoville Barton exhibits a sensational perfume of charcoal, burning embers, underbrush, cedar, creme de cassis, and subtle toasty oak. Painfully concentrated (much like the 2000 was at the same stage), with full body, admirable… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 92+ Tasting Notes This is an impressively endowed vin de garde that should age effortlessly for 20-30 years. How Anthony Barton continues to fashion uncompromisingly primordial Bordeaux that are always among the biggest and densest of all the St.-Juliens is beyond me, but he does it year in and year out.… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 95+ Tasting Notes One cannot admire enough proprietor Anthony Barton and his classic, potentially long-lived wines that are models of power, elegance, and longevity ?V in short, these wines symbolize what makes Bordeaux so world-renowned! Probably capable of rivaling the 2000, the uncompromisingly made, formidably powerful, masculine, and highly extracted 2003… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 92 Tasting Notes Even better from bottle than from cask, and one of the finest wines of the vintage, this dense purple-colored 2002 reveals wonderfully sweet notes of charcoal, fresh mushrooms, smoke, earth, leather, cassis, and cedar. Full-bodied, highly extracted, broodingly backward, dense, and deep, this impressively endowed offering is built… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 92 Tasting Notes Consistent from bottle (I tasted it three times), this is an outstanding offering, although not quite at the prodigious level of the 2000. Civilized and approachable for a young Leoville-Barton, it exhibits a saturated plum/purple color along with classic Bordelais aromas of damp earth, creme de cassis, smoke,… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 95+ Tasting Notes I found this to be one of the more backward wines of the 2000 vintage and gave it a window of maturity of 2015-2040 when I reviewed it in 2003. In my two recent tastings of it, I changed that window to 2018-2050, which probably says more than… Read More »