Crème de cassis, graphite, flowers, and spicy wood all emerge from the 2023 Château Rauzan-Ségla, a truly brilliant Margaux that is particularly unique in the vintage due to a 30-40% loss of Merlot, resulting in an unusually high Cabernet Sauvignon content. Based on 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13.5% Merlot, and 1.5% Petit Verdot and aged 18 months in 15% new barrels, it's medium-bodied on the palate, with a concentrated, multi-dimensional mouthfeel, pure, polished tannins, and a great finish. This smokingly good beauty is flawlessly balanced and will shine for three decades if well stored. Don't miss this. It's worth a case purchase. Drink 2029-2056. - Jeb Dunnuck

(JL 96-98 points) Dark in color, the array of floral notes shoot out with violets, lilacs, and roses. From there you find truffle, red and black fruits, cigar box and cedar also come IT is It is the striking nose powered by violets, and lilacs that gets the wine going, before finding all the currants, black cherries, mint, and spice in the perfume. On the palate, the wine is lush, energetic, long, deep, and rich. There is purity, paired with opulence in the long, vibrant, velvet-textured finish, with just a hint of chalk that appears on the backend. The wine is a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13.5% Merlot, and 1% Petit Verdot. Once aging, this is a new, record-setting percentage of Cabernet in the blend. 14% Press wine. 13.5% ABV, 3.6 pH. The harvest took place September 7 – September 20. Yields were 30 hectoliters per hectare. The Grand Vin was produced from 50% of the harvest. Drink from 2029-2065.

The 2023 Rauzan-Ségla is magnificent. The marriage of elegance and power is just compelling. Rich, layered and nearly seamless in the glass, the 2023 is so impressive. Dried herbs, cedar, tobacco and incense capture tons of Cabernet Sauvignon savoriness. The intensity of the dark red/purplish fruit is remarkable. Rauzan-Ségla is one of the wines of the vintage. Tasted three times. - Antonio Galloni

The polish and beauty to this is really impressive, with blackberry, black currant, milk chocolate, cherry and a hint of stone aromas that are pulled together in a subtle way. it's medium- to full-bodied with class and sophistication. 85% cabernet sauvignon, 13.5% merlot and 1.5% petit verdot. One of the highest percentages of cabernet ever. Needs four or five years to come together. Best after 2029. James Suckling Senior Editor

(TWI 95-97 points) The 2023 Rauzan-Segla is deep garnet-purple in color. It prances out with flamboyant notes of Morello cherries, blackcurrant pastilles, violets, and licorice giving way to suggestions of rosebud tea, crushed rocks, and Sichuan pepper. The medium-bodied palate delivers amazing tension to offset the shiny black and red berry layers, framed by velvety tannins, finishing long and perfumed. This is gorgeous! The blend is 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13.5% Merlot, and 1.5% Petit Verdot, aging 18 months in oak, 55% new, with pH 3.61 and yield 30 hl/ ha. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown

Blue fruits, wax crayon on the nose, some soft floral notes, a little quiet aromatically. Intense and forward, this is bright and focussed, a little more velvety than Segla, this has a verticality but with a deep mid palate that really extends giving more of a feeling of controlled power. Certainly not shouting but this is very polished. Quite a serious take, more dark fruit, less lively crunchy red fruit, A great result with structure and volume. There's a balance between intensity and freshness but all delivered subtly and with class. More Margaux than some others in the vintage, soft tannins give a touch of voluptuousness. Touches of wet stone also linger on the finish. A lot to like here. Feels very Rauzan, very polished, a touch ‘less’ than 2022 of course, but this has great energy and a lot of drinkability. 3.61pH. 60% grand vin production.

Inkier and more luscious in texture than the Ségla, this has rich layers to its aromatic palate, showing rhubarb, savoury cassis and blueberry, peony, rose petals, soot, gunsmoke, graphite, flint, weight and texture, spiralling upwards. Wonderful expression of a wine that seems supremely Margaux and supremely Rauzan Ségla. 50% new oak.

(WA 94-96 points) The 2023 Rauzan-Ségla shows considerable promise, unwinding in the glass with aromas of cherries, dark berries and plums mingled with hints of pencil shavings and violets. Medium to full-bodied, layered and concentrated, it's deep and fleshy, with terrific purity of fruit, supple tannins and a long, resonant finish. This classic in the making is a blend of 85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13.5% Merlot and 1.5% Petit Verdot. - William Kelley