92 Wine Enthusiast

Very ripe, lush flavors of dried cherries and late-picked plums mingle with dark chocolate and espresso accents in this full-bodied, firmly tannic wine as it saturates the palate. The wine is robust and concentrated. Decant and drink now, but it will be better from 2026.

94 Luis Gutierrez - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The wine released in 2024 is the 2019 Pintia, from a very dry year when they did a softer vinification and used some 15% stainless steel for the élevage to keep the fruit and freshness. It fermented in stainless steel and oak vats with indigenous yeasts. It's a powerful year; the wine has 15% alcohol and is round and full-bodied. It's a heady and ripe Pintia. They had to be careful with the harvest date, and they harvested early and quite quickly. Even though the wine is ripe and heady, with notes of grenadine and small ripe berries, it's also exotic and spicy, quite showy, lush and full-bodied, with 2019 tannins. It's a more powerful wine that is going to require patience. They produced 224,724 bottles, 6,587 magnums and some smaller and larger sizes. It was bottled in May 2021.

93 Wine Spectator

Sleek and expressive, with vibrant cherry and pomegranate flavors that take on rose petal and spiced tea accents as this builds richness toward medium-grained tannins. Drink now through 2031. 14,437 cases made.

91 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Lemon peel and sliced pineapples with some oatmeal and lees. Creamy and flavorful on the medium-to full-bodied palate, but it remains fresh and textured. Star fruit, nectarine and green pineapples in the finish with a slight, grippy feel. Pure, fruity and balanced.

96-98+ Lisa Perrotti-Brown - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"The 2020 Pontet-Canet is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 32% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot, aging in 50% new French oak barriques, 35% concrete amphorae and 15% in one-year-old barrels. Harvest began on the 14th September for the Merlot, and the final lot of Cabernet Sauvignon was harvested on 30th September.

Opaque purple-black in color, it needs significant aeration and swirling to coax out evocative notes of black cherry preserves, raspberry pie, blackcurrant pastilles and damp soil, before launching into gorgeous floral and spice notions of red roses, cinnamon stick, star anise and cardamom, with a waft of crushed rocks. The medium to full-bodied palate reveals a lot of depth and polish, delivering mouth-coating red and black fruits with loads of fragrant earth and floral sparks, framed by velvety tannins and seamless freshness, finishing long and mineral tinged. This is a singular, fascinating expression of the vintage and highly recommended!"

92 Josh Raynolds - Vinous Media

Deep violet color. Displays an array of spice-tinged black and blue fruit aromas, along with building floral and smoked meat nuances. Gently chewy and focused on the palate, offering sweet blueberry and kirsch flavors that are complemented by suggestions of olive, smoky minerals and cracked pepper. Fine-grained tannins frame a long, energetic finish that echoes the floral and spice notes emphatically.

100 James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com

Rose petals, sandalwood and currants with some plums and fruit tea. Full-bodied, tight and focused. Incredibly straight and minerally. Toned muscles here. Tannic. Traditional and unwavering. Try in 2024.

98 Jeb Dunnuck - jebdunnuck.com

More opulent, sexy and concentrated, the 2015 Chateau La Mission Haut Brion is a tour de force that has everything you could want from Bordeaux. A huge nose of smoke tobacco, gravelly earth, graphite, cassis, and blackcurrants gives way to a full-bodied, concentrated, perfectly balanced beauty that has incredible depth of flavor and intensity, yet with no weight. While the overall impression is upfront and in your face, it has incredible elegance and length on the finish (as well as ripe tannin) and will keep for three decades. The 2015 is 58% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Sauvignon, and the rest Cabernet Franc.

98 Antonio Galloni - Vinous

The 2015 La Mission Haut-Brion is blessed with an outstanding bouquet of brilliantly focused and delineated black fruit laced with graphite and cedar - pure class. The medium-bodied, harmonious palate delivers fine-grained tannin and impressive depth. There is a slight savory element (just like the Haut-Brion) that infuses the middle, and brown spices and sage linger on the finish. This is a profound La Mission Haut-Brion that dares surpass Haut-Brion on this showing. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.

98 Lisa Perrotti-Brown - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The deep garnet-purple colored 2015 La Mission Haut-Brion is a blend of 58% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 35% Cabernet Sauvignon. Youthfully mute with bright, youthful red currants, black raspberries, cassis and freshly crushed blackberries notions, it slowly unfurls to reveal an earthy/minerally undercurrent of damp soil, charcoal, iron ore and truffles plus a waft of violets. Medium to full-bodied, decadently fruited and yet wonderfully elegant with very ripe, very silky tannins, freshness that sits well in the background and an almost electric intensity of vibrant red and black fruit flavors, it finishes long and minerally. Just. Beautiful. Consider giving it 6-7 years in bottle before broaching and drink it over the next 30+.

98 Wine Spectator

Alluring and harmonious, this red features fresh, ripe cherry, strawberry, rose and mineral flavors allied to a beautifully integrated structure. Silky in texture and complex, this evolves to a long, intense aftertaste echoing the fruit and picking up savory notes of Mediterranean herbs. So delicious, you'll want to drink this now. Best from 2026 through 2045. 470 cases made, 380 cases imported.

100 Lisa Perrotti-Brown - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The 2016 Cos d'Estournel is blended of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 23% Merlot and 1% Cabernet Franc aged in 65% new and 35% two-year-old French oak for 15 months. Bottled in July 2018, it is deep garnet-purple colored and starts off a little closed and reticent, opening out slowly and seductively to reveal beautiful lilacs, rose hip tea, crushed stones and camphor nuances over a core of crème de cassis, kirsch, wild blueberries and mocha plus wafts of incense and wood smoke. The palate is simply electric, charged with an energy and depth of flavors that seem to defy the elegance and ethereal nature of its medium-bodied weight, featuring super ripe, densely pixelated tannins that firmly frame the myriad of fruit and floral sparks, finishing with epic length. Just. Magic.

100 Neal Martin - Vinous Media

In my last sighted review of the 2016 Cos d’Estournel, I wrote: "I suspect it will close down for a period in its youth." Perhaps it is already beginning to shut down, because though this wine was deeply impressive, it fell just a notch short of ethereal previous bottles, despite its "pixelated black fruit" on the nose and "sublime balance" on the palate. I tasted the wine twice thereafter, though this time with a 4-6 hour decant, and this revealed the Cos d'Estournel that has amazed since I first tasted it out of barrel.

90 Wine Enthusiast

Honeyed apricot, lemon zest and gentle florals lead. There's a musky, mushroomy underbelly. The palate is dry and opulent. The richness is lifted with lovely citrus acidity and bright florals; that mushroom earthiness flickers on the finish.

92 Wine Enthusiast

Refreshment is the name of the game at this North Canterbury winery, located in the Waipara Valley, just north of Christchurch. The nose is heady and perfumed: vivid cherries, strawberries and florals, with whispers of white pepper, river stones, and vanilla bean. The medium weight palate is similarly vibrant, leading with fresh, silky red berries framed in savory tannins. Not the world's most complex Pinot but totally delicious nonetheless. Drink now slightly chilled.