95
James Suckling - Jamessuckling.com
"Gorgeous ripe fruit character, with loads of blueberries, blackberries and flowers. Full body, with velvety tannins and a fruity, fresh, grapefruit aftertaste. Really beautiful. Best ever from here. Best after 2018." (02/12)
92 Wine Enthusiast
"Very structured wine, with black currant fruit and dense acidity. The tannins are dark, firm, solid. This is a fine wine from Cantemerle, reveling in the richness of the vintage. - RV"
91+ Robert Parker - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
"Readers looking for the more ethereal, elegant side of Bordeaux need search no further than Cantemerle, one of the estates in the very southern end of the Medoc. Dense ruby/purple (nearly opaque), this wine offers up notes of lead pencil shavings, spring flowers, raspberries and black cherries. The wine is ethereal, medium-bodied, and by no means a blockbuster, but long and intellectual. However, the tannins are present, and the wine is certainly capable of putting on weight with time in the bottle. Give it 3-4 years of bottle age and drink it over the following 25+ years."
91 Wine Spectator
"This broad, fleshy style delivers toasty spice and tobacco notes up front, followed by dark cocoa, crushed plum and mulled blackberry fruit flavors. This really stretches out nicely in the glass, with alluring dark fruit and a velvety feel. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc. Drink now through 2017. 33,330 cases made. -JM"
90+ Stephen Tanzer - Vinous Media
"Bright, deep ruby-red. High-pitched, inky aromas of blackberry, violet and licorice. Juicy, lively and penetrating, with a restrained sweetness and a distinctly cool quality to its black fruit and graphite flavors. Nicely dense but not a fleshy style of 2009. Finishes with firm tannins and sneaky length, and a light touch. I'd lay this down for five or six years; it should last for a good two decades."