(92-94 points) The 2023 Château Clerc Milon is gorgeous, with a salty, slightly bloody character in its red and black fruits, flowers, chalky mineral, and spicy oak-like aromatics. These carry to a medium to full-bodied...

(92-94 points) Including slightly more Cabernet Sauvignon than usual, the 2023 Château D'Armailhac is based on 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, 13% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot, aging in 50% new oak. It's...

I love the purity of the 2018 Château Grand-Puy Lacoste, a ripe, upfront, expressive beauty that has loads of currant and cassis notes as well as flowers, spicy wood, graphite, and hints of tobacco. Full-bodied, rich...

(JD 93-95 points) The Grand Vin 2023 Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste checks in as 77% Cabernet Sauvignon and 23% Merlot (the 11th to the 28th of September) with the élevage in 75% new French oak. Its deeper plum hue is...

The 2015 Lafite-Rothschild is slightly higher in tone than the Mouton-Rothschild on the nose, with scents of blackberry, iodine, cedar and crushed violet emerging with time in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied and...

Reminiscent of the 1995 Lafite but modern, this wine is extremely aromatic, showing lead pencil, currants, blackberries, black olives and smoke with some gunpowder. Notes of iodine, stone, blood and ink. It is...

The second wine of Château Pichon-Longueville is soft, perfumed and delicious. It's a wine with plenty of juicy fruit, though at this stage the wood is too dominant. The finish shows a hint of spice. ROGER VOSS

(JD 95-97 points) Blue fruits, sappy herbs, flowers, and subtle graphite notes all emerge from the 2023 Château Pontet-Canet, a medium to full-bodied, concentrated Pauillac that has plenty of mid-palate flesh and...