Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

This wine has a very youthful color and seems to be close to full maturity, without the density of the 1998, or its successor, the perfect 2000. It has abundant foresty notes, plenty of spice box, blackcurrant and black cherry fruit, some background toasty oak, medium to full body and sweet tannin. A very delicious wine, it offers a complex and fragrant style. It should be drunk over the next 12-15 years. (RP)

(08/2015)

Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar

Full red-ruby. Highly nuanced nose combines currant, minerals, earth, coffee and mocha. Silky, suave and consistent from start to finish, with sweet, burnished flavors of currant, minerals and tobacco. Complex and flamboyant. Finishes very long and ripe, with lush, firm tannins. Uncommonly satisfying for the vintage. (ST)

(05/2002)

Wine Spectator

A relatively forgotten year sandwiched between the great '98 (for the Right Bank) and '00, this is gentle, with mulled plum and red currant fruit supported with light cedar and alder notes. Mature, with dried tobacco and a flash of earth through the finish. Not in the league of the other wines in this flight, but, notably, it doesn't feel as if this wine was overdone; rather, it's an accurate expression of the vintage.--Non-blind Pavie vertical (March 2017). Drink now through 2020. (JM, Web only-2017)

Jancis Robinson

Dark purple. Rich and round. Pzazz. Just a bit thick and cocoa-like but much more comfortable than the 2007 tasted just beforehand. 16.5/20

(11/2010)