Pre-Arrivals

95 Points! Gorgeous cool blue fruits, liquorice and salinity on the nose, clean but really expressive. Full and forward, quite intense with plump fruit, however there's great depth and energy. Concentrated and ripe, but also with cool touches of blueberry, cola and wet-stone nuances. Nice energy and focus, streamlined, but this has a great weight with the bite and grip of 2021. Great effort. - Decanter Magazine

96 Points! A very juicy and rounded young 2021 with berry, chocolate, cedar, balsamic, and redwood aromas and flavors. Medium to full body. Velvety tannins. Excellent finish. Extremely well done for the vintage. 79% merlot, 19% cabernet franc and 2% cabernet sauvignon. Best after 2028. - JamesSuckling.com

96 Points! Black berry, pine nut, bark and dark mushroom aromas follow through to a medium body with creamy tannins that caress the palate and give a complexity and subtlety at the finish. Extremely fine velvety texture here. A beauty for the vintage. Drink in three or four years. - JamesSuckling.com

96 Points! This stands out for its structure, subtle power, balance and finesse. Perfumed and softly sweet on the nose, ripe and concentrated, glorious and inviting. Creamy and chalky at the same time, lovely texture and density with bright and concentrated strawberry and red cherry fruit. Crisp, sweet, salty and sour, a lovely combination of flavours and textures with great drive and an undercurrent of minerality and salty wet stone finish – real St-Estèphe signature. - Decanter Magazine

95 Points! Floral aromas with violets, lavender and currants. Lead pencil, too. Medium-bodied, with fine tannins that caress and please. Elegant and sophisticated. Linear line of tannins running through this. Needs two or three years to soften. Hold for now. - JamesSuckling.com

94 Points! The Grand Vin 2021 Château Léoville Poyferré from this brilliant estate checks in as 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Merlot, 9% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot. It has a serious, concentrated, inward style as well as impressive red and black currant-like fruit supported by notes of graphite, smoked tobacco, spicy oak, and chocolate. With terrific richness, a layered, concentrated mid-palate, and fine tannins, this is clearly one of the gems in the vintage. It needs to be forgotten for just 4-5 years, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it evolve for over two decades. - Jeb Dunnuck

96 Points! Excellent depth and complexity with a nice modern touch of cocoa powder to the black olives, pencil shavings, cassis, violets, black mushrooms and dark earth. Full-bodied palate with fresh, vertical tannins and lots of juicy fruit that seamlessly dissolve into the flavorful, persistent finish. Refined power with real length. Drink or hold. - JamesSuckling.com

96 Points! On the nose, this refined and silky wine shows violets, raspberries, blackcurrants and crushed stone. Medium-bodied, with cocoa and sandalwood. The center palate is deep and flavorful, solid fruit and a wonderful texture going long and horizontal. It makes you smile. Drinkable now but better in a year or two. - JamesSuckling.com

96 Points! Perfumed nose, full of pot pourri, scented flowers, dried raspberries and cherries. Really quite evocative, maybe in a vertical you'd pick this out from the nose but it smells wonderful and rich with cool blueberries. Round and charming, this is gorgeously soft, tannins are so inviting, caressing the mouth, not deep at all, this is delicate and primed to float across the tongue, registering the flavours but no heaviness. Almost ethereal in its performance. Really very delicious, full of flavour and character. Gorgeous styling and only got better after half an hour in the glass. Succulent, mineral, graphite, limestone touches on the finish remind you where you are. - Decanter Magazine

97 Points! Very complex with red currants, iodine and iron. Medium-bodied, with a dense yet energetic palate and a long and racy finish showing chalk and gunpowder. Flinty. 52% merlot, 30% cabernet franc and 18% cabernet sauvignon. Tight at the end, suggesting at least four to five years of cellaring. Drink after 2029. - JamesSuckling.com

96 Points! As to the Grand Vin, the saturated ruby/purple-hued 2021 Château Pavie defies the vintage with its ripe, powerful aromatics of cassis, toasted spice, chalky minerality, graphite, and hints of truffly earth. A rich, medium to full-bodied, concentrated, incredibly textured 2021, it has velvety tannins, no hard edges, and a gorgeous finish. It's a testament to the talent and work of this incredible team and is up with the crème de la crème of the vintage. The 2021 is based on 52% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 18% Cabernet Sauvignon, brought up in a mix of new and used barrels, hitting 14.14% alcohol and a pH of 3.67. It’s going to age for 20-25 years if well stored. - Jeb Dunnuck