Wine Cellar - Bordeaux Left Bank

A look at the Left Bank of Bordeaux over several vintages

• NV Champagne Le Mesnil Champagne Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Brut 90 Points

  France, Champagne, Champagne Grand Cru

  (Tasted Blind): The bouquet reveals lovely biscuits, flat-crust pastry, lemon peel and orchard fruits. An athletic wine, the acid is tight and fresh and weaves between brioche, Forelle pear, crushed unroasted nuts and lemon biscuits. Very enjoyable, there is a chalky edge and a long finish.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2006 Château Haut-Bellevue (Alain Roses) 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Moulis en Médoc

  (Tasted Blind): Light to ruby with pink flashes. Fairly intense ripe cherry with raspberry and chocolate. Made in a modern style, the palate is soft with a zesty acidity and some complexity. The flavours are rich and juicy with a plum skin texture and notes of spice, melted chocolate, forest berries and cassis. Finishes medium with silky tannins. Enjoyable, easy-going Bordeaux.
  Blend: 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Merlot.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2005 Château Cambon La Pelouse 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Haut-Médoc

  (Tasted Blind): A medium to deep garnet colour with notes of marmite, sliced bread, warmed gravel, earthy and plum with a touch of dark cherry. The palate entry is powerful and deep with a firm, gravelly texture with a core of blackcurrants, pencil shavings and graphite. Dry with powdery tannins, the finish is fairly long.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2005 Château Potensac 87 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc

  (Tasted Blind): Medium garnet colour with a nose of softened cherries, toasty oak, tobacco, spice, chocolate, and mocha. Expressive, linear yet with a modern cleanliness and feel this is still youthful. The fruit is ripe, and the wine is medium-bodied with some finessed chocolate cream showing good extraction. It has some elegance, but it is all about appeal, with lots of notes from the oak with coffee and spice and tertiary notes of tobacco and roasted herbs. That linearity keeps pressing and the tannins are firm and rising and somewhat shortening the finish.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2004 Château Prieuré-Lichine 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

  (Tasted Blind): A medium to deep ruby with earthy notes and a strange creosote element? Slowly opens to wet potters clay, tar, damp undergrowth, graphite and blackcurrant. Fairly intense entry with black fruits, rustic, grippy tannins albeit with a slight green note. Powerful and drying on the back palate, dulling the finish. Touch of cigar loungem tobacco that made me think this is old style Claret.
  Made up of 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 42% Merlot, and 4% Cabernet Franc.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2005 Château Brane-Cantenac 90 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Margaux

  (Tasted Blind): A deep garnet colour. Aromas of earth, black cherry, blackcurrant, stave planks, cedarwood and truffle. The palate entry is somewhat sweet with lots of spice and new oak toastiness. The ripe blackcurrant to cassis notes aren't so much baked but have a strange combo of a heavy, leaden-footed feel with an edge of green, black currant leaf. Tannins are thick and present, giving power and wonderful structure, but could have done with a little more verve?

  Post a Comment / 1 person found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2007 Château Léoville Barton 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

  (Tasted Blind): A medium to deep ruby colour with an elegance, perfumed bouquet showing fresh black cherry, cassis, chocolate and spices. It's an intense and endearing wine that penetrates the nasal cavities! Fabulous entry with lots of new oak now but plenty of ripe fruit flavours set against a taut, salivating acid structure and dense, slightly chewy tannins. Flavours of raspberry, 85% Dark chocolate, expresso foam, vanilla and a dry spice. Great concentration; this is a broader style with an extended finish.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2006 Château Langoa Barton 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

  (Tasted Blind): A deep ruby red with soft-scented cherry, blackcurrant, and light spices with a hint of volatility and a savoury overlay. Rich and ripe on entry the texture is dusty, the wine is quite elegant and the flavours tilt towards blackcurrant and blackberry. The VA is ok but slightly enhances the dryness on the back palate as the firm tannins kick in.Pretty good.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1996 Château Branaire (Duluc-Ducru) 88 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

  (Tasted Blind): A medium ruby red corer with a noted orange rim suggests some development. The bouquet is quite earthy with feral qualities and I felt a little Bretty - but not too badly affected. With dried-out fruit on the palate, the wine has that earthy, cedarwood classicism, and the acid is relatively excitable. However, the Brett doesn't transmogrify into a bitter tail and, as such, seems to sit nicely with the wine.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2006 Château Pontet-Canet 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  (Tasted Blind): A medium to deep garnet with a strong volatile note, lots of new wood and warm fruits with resin elements. The entry is rich and ripe with a chalky texture, licks of vanilla, some hung meat, and a smoky cigar lounge. A big, powerful wine, full-bodied, the tannins have density and support nicely and there is enough acidity to give it a long finish. This has all the ingredients to become a fabulous wine even if it is still quite young and gawky. Potential is amazing!
  Mostly made up of Cabernet Sauvignon

  Read 1 Comment / Post a Comment / 2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2000 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste 93 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  (Tasted Blind): A deep garnet colour with a bouquet of cedarwood, pencil, black forest fruits, tar, and roasted meat. There is a mineral-acid quality on entry that feels firm like crushed gravel. There is enough blackberry and blackcurrant to give a slightl flesh, but the accent is on graphite and cedar, leading to finely-grained quality tannins that is narrower in shape and weaves persistently through the mouth wonderfully. Probably needs food but a very smart traditional claret and classic Pauillac.

  Post a Comment / 2 people found this helpful, do you? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 1990 Château Duhart-Milon 90 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, Pauillac

  (Tasted Blind): A medium to deep ruby colour. Stewed fruit and some volatility on the nose with some ripe berries and cassis but not quite raisin. Most evolved and likely the oldest of the flight. With a gravelly texture, the wine is full of resoled but firm tannins that continue until way after the long finish. Older warm vintages from the 1990's?

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2006 Château Le Crock 89 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

  (Tasted Blind): A mid-ruby colour with a youthful nose of solid cherry, toasty new oak, chocolate and mocha. Fragrant with just a smidgeon of volatility. An elegant, finessed wine with vibrant acidity and grippy+ tannins, there is just about enough richness of fruit to work and a long, long length. Va slightly invasive but not too bad.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2003 Château Le Crock 90 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

  (Tasted Blind):A medium+ garnet colour, with notes of graphite, blackcurrant, tobacco, earth and dried herbs. Classic St. Estephe! Deep and dark on the palate, this is a full-bodied wine that manages to be smooth but maintains power and grip to the structure. Concentration, with good length, the wine still retains some new oak and prune qualities on the close.
  This has got 25% Merlot in it.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue

• 2002 Château Montrose 92 Points

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Estèphe

  (Tasted Blind): A deep garnet colour with a bouquet revealing cedarwood, earth, hung game, roasted herbs and some rustic notes. Very intense, the wine is full-throated with raw power, concentration and flaovurs of blackcurrant concentrated/cassis, tilled soil almost on a rocky outcrop. The remnants of oak shows as some light spice adding some lovely complexity and the wine finishes long. The tannins are still quite furtive giving some firmness and accentuating the stony qualities.

  Post a Comment / Do you find this review helpful? Yes - No / Report Issue