94 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

The 2023 Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast is a medium ruby color and is fresh on the nose with notes of lifted spice, compact red berries, Bing cherries, roses, and sweet herbs. The palate is medium-bodied, with a polished and fine texture, a silky feel, and clean elegance through the finish. It’s a lovely and charming Pinot Noir with a lot of finesse to drink over the coming 8-10 years.

94 Wine Enthusiast

This wine is rich, supple, with aromas of strawberry, raspberry, tangerine cream, cinnamon, and notes of Orange blossom on the nose. The flavors on the palate are ripe peach, cranberry-cherry compote, apricot, star anise, with fine mousse mid- palate, toasted chestnut, orange cream, and a dry long finish. Super Brunch Bubbles — Tonya Pitts

96 Wine Enthusiast

Fermented in traditional open-top granite tanks and aged for three years in large wood barrels, this wine celebrates Alicante Bouschet. It has power, dense tannins and a powerfully rich texture. These contrast well with the solid black fruits and the impressive poise and elegance.

95 Decanter

From this large region’s most historic estate, 70% of the blend is Alicante Bouschet, showing exotically spicy black fruit aromas leading to structure and depth on the palate, great individuality, and freshness and acidity for the long term. Excellent. Drinking Window: 2018 - 2030

94 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

Another blended wine like the Chardonnay Granitiers, the 2024 Pinot Noir Montanita De Oro is a celebration of the best mountain sites in Monterey, the 51% majority from Pelio, some Michaud, and the rest from Double LL, each at mid-elevation in different AVAs, including the soon-to-be designated Carmel Coast. Harvested, native-fermented (60% whole cluster), and aged separately, Smith blends them together in the spring to age under a year in new, second-fill, and neutral French oak. The texture is creamy smooth, with a medium-bodied wealth of crisp red fruit and dried herb. Drink now through 2034.

93 Nicolas Greinacher - Vinous

The 2025 Bandol Rosé is already showing beautifully, offering a medium-bodied palate with lovely drive and freshness, the latter especially impressive given the warmth of the vintage. There is a sense of poise here that sets it apart, combining Mediterranean sun with real structural discipline. This is precisely why great Bandol Rosé enjoys such a cult following—it is not merely refreshing, but serious and characterful with the depth to evolve in bottle. Few Rosés in the world occupy that space so convincingly, and this wine is a clear reminder of the category’s highest possibilities.

93 Wine Enthusiast

This Cabernet Sauvignon, with the extra oomph of Petit Verdot, showcases dark fruits, sweet ripe blackberries, spices, and resinous forest notes followed by a savory finish. Tannins are abundant while sheathed in a fine polish. Even so, this wine will benefit from decanting, a meal, or further time in cellar. Enjoy in two years and for another two decades.

98 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

"A stunning wine for this vintage although it’s still a bit shy on the nose (more spice than fruit showing than now). There’s wet earth, too, but on the palate it’s bursting with ripe yet subtle flavors. Very long and complex finish that goes on and on."

96 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

A final blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot and 5% Petit Verdot, the 2014 Pontet-Canet is brilliant stuff, and I was able to taste this wine from barrel as well as multiple times from bottle, both at the estate and from a bottle purchased in the United States. It offers a sensational bouquet of crème de cassis, black raspberries, tobacco leaf, and minerals, as well as an unmistakable Pauillac lead pencil characteristics that I just adore. Possessing full-bodied richness, a rounded, surprisingly opulent, sexy texture, awesome purity, and sweet, succulent tannin, it’s a sensational 2014 that might just surpass what they accomplished in 2015. This is a 2014 you won’t regret buying in bulk as it’s going to keep for 2-3 decades and be drinkable for the vast majority of it. Bravo to Alfred Tesseron and his team!

96 Roger Voss - Wine Enthusiast

Cellar Selection - This is a finely structured wine with dark tannins and intense black fruits. The estate, with its biodynamically grown fruit, has given an impressively pure wine, packed with tight serious tannins and a fine structure of black-plum skins and intense acidity. It is direct, firm and with a huge potential over many years. Drink from 2027.

96 Lisa Perrotti-Brown - The Wine Independent

The 2014 Pontet-Canet is composed of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, and 1% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet colored, it needs coaxing to reveal a profound core of baked plums, creme de cassis, and cigar box with wafts of tapenade, wood smoke, and mossy bark, plus a spicy hint of cumin seed. Medium to full-bodied, the palate has an impressive foundation of ripe, grainy tannins and lively acidity supporting the muscular black fruits, finishing on a lingering peppery note.

95+ Antonio Galloni - Vinous

"The 2014 Pontet-Canet seems to have put on quite a bit of weight and volume since I first tasted it from barrel. Ripe, juicy tannins wrap around a core of intense dark cherry, plum, spice, lavender and tobacco. Today, it is the wine's sheer intensity and vertical structure that stands out. I wouldn't dream of touching a bottle until at least age ten, and even that is almost certainly not going to be enough time for the 2014 to show the full breadth of its potential. The transformation the 2014 has undergone from a delicate, nuanced Pauillac to a wine of depth is quite remarkable. Tasted three times. The blend is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, vinified in equal parts cement and oak and aged in a combination of 50% new oak, 35% amphora and 15% once used barrels. This is a gorgeous wine from the Tesseron family and the team led by Technical Director Jean-Michel Comme."

95 Decanter

"Classic Cabernet nose of cassis. Lovely purity and depth with a silky texture that caresses the palate – more obviously Pontet-Canet than Pauillac. An extremely fine wine almost in a class of its own."

95 Peter Moser - Falstaff

Dark ruby, purple reflections, delicate edge brightening. Spicy, a hint of autumn leaves, blackberry, dried rose hip, black cherry, cassis and suede with air, with subtle nougat in the background. Overall a somewhat shy bouquet that calls for decanting. Powerful, tightly meshed, mineral, fine nougat at the core, ripe, supporting tannins that are still somewhat demanding, mineral-salty finish, seems somewhat closed at the moment, but will show its full certain ageing potential after a certain resting phase. Patience is required here. (2025- 2060).

94 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

A fleshy and voluminous nose of cherries, underbrush and lavender. The palate is medium- to full-bodied with restrained richness and a charming, approachable character. Easygoing, fresh and succulent. Drink now.

92 Andreas Larsson - Tasted by Andreas Larsson

Dark purple core and hue. A polished and modern style with balanced oak, the fruit is both ripe and fresh with fine grain and texture, good drinkability despite its youth with great length.

93 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

"The 2018 Barolo Riserva Cascina Dardi is a fine choice for drinking now and over the next decade or so. Spice, worn-in leather, cedar and pipe tobacco are all suggestive of a Barolo that is headed into its first plateau of maturity. The Riserva is a strong wine for the year, but the medium-bodied structure of the vintage is impossible to ignore. There's plenty to like, but I would not push my luck on aging. A burst of floral and spice notes wrapped in silky tannins rounds things out in this stylish Barolo from the Fantino brothers."

96 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

"The 2021 Pinot Noir Deerheart Vineyard is a new wine in this range. It offers up copious dark cherry/plum fruit along hints of dried herbs, flowers, mint and spice that lend nuance. Bright acids and veins of supporting tannin lend energy throughout. This deep, mid-weight Pinot has a ton to offer. Aeration is essential here."

95 Wine Enthusiast

"Polished layers of black raspberry, toasted herb and wild mountain mint coalesce into a wondrously inviting and complex nose on this bottling. The palate presents waves of baked strawberry, bay leaf and peppercorn as acidity creeps slowly in and then lingers long into the flavorful finish. -MK"

91 Wine Enthusiast

Strong herbal aromas of incense, bay leaf and patchouli meet with smashed red plum and sandalwood on the nose of this clonal study. The herbal package picks up thyme, oregano and fennel pollen on the roasted-plum palate.