Ratings By Robert Parker 97 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 »
Ratings By Robert Parker 89 Tasting Notes Dry tannin and a backward, austere, muscular, brooding personality characterize Leoville Barton’s 1999. However, it is packed with grip, body, and depth. Give it 5-6 years of cellaring and hope the tannin melts away sufficiently for the fruit to come forward. It should last for two decades, but… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 88 Tasting Notes This opaque purple-colored, muscular, full-bodied, classically made St.-Julien displays impressive concentration, chewy, highly-extracted flavors of black fruits, iron, earth, and spicy wood, and a powerful mouth-feel. A pure, uncompromising, traditionally-styled wine, it is to be admired for its authenticity, class, and quality. Anticipated maturity: 2007-2035. Readers seeking classic,… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 87 Tasting Notes Medium ruby with purple nuances, this ripe St.-Julien exhibits delicious, sweet cassis fruit mixed with high quality toasty oak. The wine possesses fat, accessible fruit flavors, attractive glycerin, and no hardness. Neither big nor muscular, it is a medium-bodied, elegant, savory, charming, and delicious effort to be enjoyed… Read More »
Ratings By Robert Parker 93 Tasting Notes This fabulous 1996 was tasted three times from bottle, and it is unquestionably the finest wine produced by this estate since their blockbuster 1990. Medium to full-bodied, with a saturated black/purple color, the nose offers notes of cedar, jammy black fruits, smoke, truffles, and subtle new oak. In… Read More »
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 »