Incredibly perfumed aromas of roses and violets, as well as blue fruit and lavender. Full-bodied and powerful, yet so full of finesse and vibrance. The height of elegance! Such depth of chalk and dark berries. It goes on for minutes. Drink after 2025.

Deep garnet in color, the 2016 Belair-Monange slowly drifts out of the glass to offer gorgeous scents of black raspberries, boysenberry preserves, and baked plums, plus suggestions of Indian spices, sandalwood, and dried mint with a hint of crushed rocks. The palate is rich and full-bodied, delivering mouth-filling black fruits and exotic spice layers with a velvety texture and seamless freshness, finishing very long and perfumed.

Edouard Moueix is taking Belair Monange on a ride that we all want to come along with. Made from Cabernet Franc and Merlot on the limestone plateau, this is a gorgeous wine, easily up there with the very best of St-Emilion. The 2016 is buttoned up, with hints of austerity, but it's hard to miss the most gorgeous limestone vertical lift that it displays. It has incredibly poised blueberry and raspberry fruits, showing integrity and confidence, accompanied by hints of caressing oak and cappuccino creaminess as it opens. (Drink between 2024-2045)

97+ A blend of 92% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc, the medium to deep garnet-purple colored 2016 Belair Monange comes strutting out of the glass like a total rock star with gregarious red cherries, blackberries and warm plums scents plus hints of lavender, rose hip tea, powdered cinnamon, cigar box and camphor. Medium-bodied, it completely fills the palate with vibrant red and black fruit layers, framed by a firm backbone of grainy tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing long and perfumed. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown

This was not tasted during the Connoisseur Week, but is a request from a subscriber, so I am adding in at the same time from opening a bottle that I have at home. It's an exceptional wine, still a little austere at this point, with everything in place to deliver joy over the next two to three decades. The salt twist of the limestone-dominant soils is on full display, alongside crushed raspberries and blackberries, cocoa bean, liqourice root, chamomile flowers and pomegranate, opening to show creamy cappuccino. This was the point that everything was starting to come together for Belair-Monange under the Moueix ownership.

(96+ points) The 2016 Château Belair-Monange (92% Merlot and 8% Cabernet Franc) comes from limestone soils on both the upper plateau and the hillside slope just outside of the village of Saint Emilion. This deep, saturated purple-hued effort offers a more primordial style in its ripe black fruits, toasty oak, espresso bean, and spring flower-scented aromas and flavors. With full-bodied richness, solid acidity, terrific purity, and rock-solid underlying structure, this beautiful Saint Emilion needs 4-5 years of bottle age and will keep for two decades. It opens up nicely with time in the glass, so if you feel like drinking a bottle soon, give it a healthy decant.

Full-bodied, concentrated, soft, silky and with a beautiful purity to its layers of fruits, you also find, smoke, licorice wet earth, cigar wrapper and spice. Fresh, energetic and fruity, with soft, polished tannins this is going to be a knockout with at least a decade of aging. 96 Points Read more at:https://www.thewinecellarinsider.com/wine-tasting-note/?vintage=2016&wine=Chateau%20Belair-Monange

The fruit—plum, fig and black currant—is decidedly dark in profile now, but it is very, very pure, with sleek and racy definition throughout. There's a swath of tobacco and alluring toast as well, but this red is defined on its back end by a bolt of chalky minerality that is buried deep and should emerge fully with extended cellaring. Best from 2022 through 2038. 2,400 cases made. — JM