Vinous - Antonio Galloni (96)

The 2012 Haut Bailly is quite fragrant and inviting. Dark raspberries, mint, crushed flowers, spices and rose petals all lift from the glass in this feminine, gracious Haut-Bailly that offers considerable near and medium-term appeal. All the elements fall into place in an effortless, stunningly beautiful wine endowed with personality and class. One of the wines of the vintage, the Haut Bailly will drink well for two decades-plus. This is a superb showing from proprietor Bob Wilmers and his team headed by Véronique Sanders. The decision to lower temperatures in fermentation and go for a soft, gentle extraction, along with strict selection has paid off big time.

James Suckling (99)

This is an extraordinary, hand-crafted Champagne with aromas of strawberries, spice, dried apples, clementines and subtle bread dough. Dried oranges, too. Full-bodied, yet so tight, compact and powerful with a solid core of fruit and a finish that goes on forever. 90% pinot noir and 10% chardonnay, all from the village of Ay and fermented and aged in new wood for 15 months. Then aged in bottle. Superb structure and complexity. One for the cellar.

James Suckling (99)

This is an extraordinary, hand-crafted Champagne with aromas of strawberries, spice, dried apples, clementines and subtle bread dough. Dried oranges, too. Full-bodied, yet so tight, compact and powerful with a solid core of fruit and a finish that goes on forever. 90% pinot noir and 10% chardonnay, all from the village of Ay and fermented and aged in new wood for 15 months. Then aged in bottle. Superb structure and complexity. One for the cellar.

James Suckling (95)

Gorgeous notes of hazelnuts, apricots, salted almonds, lemons and pistachio shells. Medium to full body with opulence, yet elegance, and a silky quality to the bubbles. Saline and gourmand finish. Nutty and light French-butter notes come through. Only 2,000 bottles. Drink or hold.

Decanter (97)

Aromas of smoke and raspberry cede to a delightful mousse on the palate, with brisk acidity propelling complex notes of pear, melon and brioche. Well-judged, elegant and impressively long, this never wavers in its elegance. Platinum Medal.

Vinous - Stephen Tanzer (92-95)

(25% vendange entier): Good bright, full red. Complex, inviting nose combines raspberry, rose petal and orange zest. Intensely flavored and sharply delineated, showing excellent lift and verve to its red fruit and soil flavors. An element of medicinal red cherry and emerging minerality suggest that this silky, deep wine will enjoy a graceful evolution in bottle. Finishes with substantial ripe tannins and lovely rising perfume. With time in the glass, this wine demonstrated its firm spine more clearly.

Wine Advocate (95+)

Il Poggione is a Brunello superstar and a vintage like this reveals every reason why that affirmation is true. From the second the 2012 Brunello di Montalcino pours into the glass, you know you are in for something special. The wine is darkly saturated and rich in appearance. Absent are those slightly amber or browning hues you often get with Sangiovese in a hot vintage. Nor does the wine show flat or tired characteristics. Instead, the quality of fruit is vibrant and rich. This is a healthy, generous and exuberant Brunello with dark density and succulent fruit flavors that are followed by integrated spice and tobacco. The balance is impressive and one thing you get here is fresh acidity. This is not to be underestimated, because the acidity quota in the 2012 vintage across the appellation is not as high or evident as usual. This is one of the year's best Brunellos.

Crafted within the distinguished region of Burgundy, J Thevenet Bongran Vire-Clesse 2011 is an exquisite testament to the mastery of its revered producer. Thevenet's acclaimed low-yield vineyard practices offer a rarity in the world of Chardonnay, yielding a rich, powerful expression. The painstakingly hand-harvested, native-yeast fermented grapes, matured on the lees in old oak barrels for up to two years, deliver an extraordinary opulence, its incredibly high natural sugar levels balanced by naturally occurring, ice-wine like acidity.

Bongran Vire-Clesse 2011 displays a luxuriously golden hue, capturing the essence of ripe apple, pears, and quince on the nose, with nuances of honey, marzipan and delicate spices. The wine intrigues the palate with its immense concentration, ushering in a kaleidoscope of complex flavours that carry through to a prolonged, invigorating finish. Remarkably age-worthy, the J Thevenet Bongran Vire-Clesse 2011 is an absolute gem of the Mâconnais district.

Wine Advocate (98+)

Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2012 Shiraz The Armagh offers a gorgeous perfume of baking spices, violets, Sichuan pepper and fragrant earth. More earthy and savory in the mouth than on the nose, the palate is superbly structured and taut—built for the long-haul—with a long, complex finish. Still very youthfully, forget this wine for 3-5 more years and consider drinking it over the next 20+.

Vinous (98+)

The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Grand Vin is a real stunner. Despite an overall impression of femininity and understatement, the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Grand Vin is simply dazzling. Sweet, floral and open-knit, the 2012 is nevertheless holding quite a bit back in potential. When I visited Kapcsándy during the 2012 harvest the enthusiasm was very high. This wine shows why. The blend is 99% Cabernet Sauvignon and 1% Merlot.

James Suckling (98)

This is a superb merlot with black olive, blueberry, iodine, and oyster shell. Full body, tight tannins. Chocolate, walnut, and bramble berry. Superb finish. A beauty. Try now but give it four to five years of bottle age.

Wine Advocate (100)

A wine that wins my nomination for the title of "wine of the vintage" is the 2012 L'Eglise Clinet, a fleshy and enveloping Pomerol evocative of dark cherries and berries mingled with licorice, spices, pencil lead, truffle and rose petals. Full-bodied, broad and textural, it's lavish and expansive, with terrific depth at the core, supple tannins and a long, resonant finish. Seamless, charming and impeccably balanced, this transcends the vintage, and while it's deceptively drinkable now, it remains a mere adolescent at age 11.

James Suckling (96)

Incredible purity of fruit to this red with plums, cherries and berries. Full body, ripe and silky tannins and a fantastically long finish. Love the bitter-orange undertone to this. Drink in 2020.

Wine Advocate (96)

Tasted blind at the Southwold 2012 tasting, the 2012 La Mission Haut-Brion showed brilliantly. It has an intense, floral bouquet with rose petals and strawberry preserve, hints of sous-bois and tobacco gently unfolding in the glass, gaining more earthiness as it aerates in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, broad and spicy with hints of bell pepper suggesting high quality Cabernet Franc. It fans out gloriously with a sustained tertiary finish that completes what is a wondrous La Mission Haut-Brion from Jean-Philippe Delmas and his team. Tasted January 2012.

James Suckling (96)

Lovely dried red fruit, such as plums with just a hint of prunes. Cedar, walnut and leather undertones. Full-bodied with lots of fruit, considering its age, as well as hints of smoke, tobacco, bark and black tea. Some balsamic at the finish. Traditionally styled with lovely results. Drink or hold.

Vinous (93)

Dark ruby. A deeply perfumed bouquet evokes spice-tinged dark fruit preserves, potpourri, vanilla and incense, and a smoky mineral overtone builds as the wine opens up. Sappy and broad on the palate, offering weighty blackberry, cherry-vanilla and spicecake flavors that turn spicier with air. Shows excellent precision on the persistent finish, which features sweet dark fruit liqueur and floral elements and harmonious tannins.

Wine Advocate (97)

I'm increasingly convinced that Pierre Larmandier produced Champagne's wines of the vintage this year, and the 2011 Extra-Brut Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Vieille Vigne du Levant only compounds that suspicion. Unfurling in the glass with a deep and complex nose of citrus zest, crisp yellow apples, smoke, warm bread, mandarin oil and oyster shell, it's full-bodied and fleshy but incisive, with huge concentration, bright acids and a long, intensely saline finish. Totally transcending the reputation of 2011, it has many of the textural properties of a great white Burgundy, married with the cut and chalky grip of Champagne's Côte de Blancs.

Steeped in luxury, the Larmandier Bernier Vieille Vigne du Levant Grand Cru 2012 is a stunning display of skill from Larmandier Bernier, a noteworthy Champagne producer. Drawing from old vines at Côte des Blancs, this wine embodies the terroir's chalky essence. Committed to biodynamic principle, the Larmandier family meticulously cultivates this single-varietal Chardonnay without artificial interference. Harvested manually, it undergoes natural fermentation and prolonged lees aging, contributing to its rich complexity.

The outcome? The Larmandier Bernier Vieille Vigne du Levant Grand Cru 2012 exhibits sumptuous flavours. Lush notes of ripe citrus, baked apple, and almond mix with a mellow undercurrent of brioche, elegantly housed within a refined mineral structure. The wine’s potent acidity beautifully underpins this symphony of flavours, while the finish persists with a lingering finesse. Give this extraordinary Champagne the appreciation it deserves and add Larmandier Bernier Vieille Vigne du Levant Grand Cru 2012 to your collection today.

Decanter (97)

A delicious wine that stands out from many in the vintage. A ton of personality, with a sappy, raspberry, autumnal berry fruit as it opens and travels through the palate, with rose petals on the edge that give a beautiful uplift along with the classic trace of mint. Its tannins are a little more angular than you find in the 2010 and 2009, but it is starting to lengthen and open, although this was a vintage that was not immediately impressive in the way that the previous two had been. A stately Latour, one that needs another few years to really show its place. The last Latour to be sold en primeur in the old system. 34% of overall production. Harvest September 12 to 26.

Decanter (97)

This will be by far the biggest release since Latour brought in the new system, as the 2012 has not been on the market before. It's a good one to start with as this is a vintage where the drinking window is starting to come into view. This is pure liquorice, graphite and profoundly dark fruits, gourmet brushed damson and crushed stones, with a silky, appealingly open texture. The tannins are as bracing as you hope for from this estate, not giving an inch yet, but there is air between them and the structure is starting to loosen up. Harvest from September 24 to October 16, under rainy conditions after a super hot summer and early September that ensured the grapes stayed in good condition, but turned the concentration from impenetrable to an altogether more approachable style.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

One of a handful of single vineyard châteaux in Champagne, now being made by Leclerc-Briant (although they are not owners). Crisp, clean, touches of green apple on the nose but there is weight behind this and it opens to show plenty of quince, hazlenut, biscuit and flaky pastry character, not quite as far as brioche at this point although it will develop over the next few years. The first wine to be released under the new regime, with Hervé Jestin chef de cave, as for Leclerc-Briant (he was in fact already making wine here under the previous owners). Ageing in neutral oak casks, biodynamic viticulture. 2.5ha of vines, 12%abv. Tasted twice, loved it both times, powerful depth of flavour. Brut zero (2g/l dosage), Blanc de Blancs, 100% Grand Cru.

Wine Advocate (95)

The 2011 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru was picked on August 25, the earliest harvest in the history of the Domaine Leflaive, and the resulting wine was another of the sleepers in this tasting, unfurling in the glass with an attractive bouquet of white flowers, fresh peach, tangerine, pear, pastry cream and warm bread. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, expansive and satiny textured, with a layered and open-knit core that's fleshy but lively, concluding with a long and precise finish. This is a forward Chevalier from Leflaive that's already drinking well, but it's a superb effort.

Meticulously crafted in the esteemed Poggio Antico estate in Montalcino, Tuscany, the Lemartine Poggio Antico 2012 honours Italian viticulture at its finest. This Brunello offers robust depth of character, attributed to the specific terroir's clay-limestone profile - ideal for Sangiovese grapes. Produced using eco-sustainable processes, the wine celebrates the land’s richness, tradition, and affinity for excellence.

The wine first undergoes a meticulous selection process and maceration. Aged for three years in large Slavonian oak barrels, it further rests in the bottle for several months, enhancing its elegant complexity. Marked by a deep garnet colour, it exhibits fragrant notes of ripe cherries, tobacco, and subtle hints of leather.

The winemaking tradition in Lemartine Poggio Antico, dating back to the eighteenth century, ensures each bottle captures the ethereal essence of Tuscany’s allure. An embodiment of devotion to quality, the Lemartine Poggio Antico 2012 is a paragon of treasured Italian craftsmanship.

Wine Advocate (90)

The 2011 Pommard Les Vignots was bottled December 2012. It has a complex, slightly earthy bouquet with subtle marine influences, defined and focused with hints of black olive emerging with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with fine focus, imbued with an Oriental edge (hoisin) which is folded into a fine silky finish. Drink now-2020.

Vinous - Antonio Galloni (92)

The 2012 Les Griffons de Pichon Baron is dark, voluptuous and immediate. A burst of sweet red plums, smoke, graphite, licorice and tobacco hits the palate. The tannins are sweet but also energetic. Extroverted in style, the 2012 also has enough depth and overall density to drink well for another decade or so. Rose petal, iron and white pepper add the final shades of nuance. Here in its first vintage, Les Griffons is 55% Cabernet Sauvignon and 45% Merlot.

Wine Advocate (100)

The 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon Mt. Veeder is as compelling a Cabernet Sauvignon as one could ever hope to taste. This 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from a high-elevation site boasts an inky/purple color, and smells of ink, blueberry liqueur, blackberries, black raspberries, mulberries, licorice, charcoal and camphor. With magnificent fruit richness, a layered, full-bodied mouthfeel, and incredible length, this seamlessly constructed 2012 should provide immense pleasure for 25+ years. Kudos to winemaker Chris Carpenter as he is clearly at the top of his game.

Wine Advocate (93)

The 2011 Viña Tondonia Blanco Reserva reflects a warm and ripe year, and the wine is more evolved and already hints at some caramel and honey. It has a mellow palate without the vibrancy of the 2010 I tasted next to it. This wine matured in used, ancient American oak barrels for six years. 19,000 bottles were filled in November 2019.

Vinous (94-97)

Good medium red. Extravagantly complex nose combines raspberry, wild rose, crushed rock, clove, mocha and wild herbs. Wonderfully subtle, spherical and nuanced, communicating an almost 3-D texture to the flavors of red berries, spices, licorice, herbs and flowers. The wine's firm spine of tannins is utterly covered by lush, fleshy fruit today. The thick, slowly rising finish washes over the palate like a wave.

Vinous - Stephen Tanzer (91-94)

Good medium red. Expressive aromas of black cherry, licorice and menthol; reduced today but very Clos Vougeot. Dense and vibrant, with very good underlying spine to its black fruit flavors. Finishes with substantial ripe tannins and excellent length. A serious Clos Vougeot in the making.