James Suckling 94-95/100
This is very layered and firm with beautiful tannins and richness. Full-bodied, tight and spicy with lovely depth. Refined and pretty. Mar 2017, www.jamessuckling.com
This is packed with fig, boysenberry and raspberry fruit flavors that keep cascading over one another while enticing anise and plum cake notes fill in throughout. Gorgeous mouthfeel, with a creamy, rounded edge, yet never giving up a generally racy and focused feel. Apr 2017, James Molesworth, www.winespectator.com
The 2016 Monbousquet is a blend of 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon cropped at 38 hectoliters per hectare at 14.46% alcohol. It was picked between 6-11 October and matured in 70% new oak, the remainder one-year-old barrels. It offers an opulent but well defined bouquet of black cherries, violets and fresh fig, a little tight initially but soon unfolding in the glass. The palate is quite rich and generous on the opening with layers of blackberry and raspberry laced with graphite and a pinch of cracked black pepper. It tapers in a little towards the finish, completing a bold and assertive Monbousquet that is likely to require four or five years in bottle in order to soften those tannins. Interestingly, the sample tasted at Pavie was a little more flamboyant than the more classically styled one that I tasted elsewhere and preferred. Apr 2017, www.robertparker.com