90+ Point Wines: Red Blend

A rich, layered red with red-berry, plum and chocolate aromas and flavors. Medium-bodied with velvety tannins. Better in a year or two, when it will have softened. Best after 2024.

Taut and linear in profile, this red delivers black currant, black cherry, vanilla and peppery spices. Tightens up on the finish, where the chalky tannins linger. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Sangiovese. Best from 2025 through... Read More

Avaline Red Blend has a light to medium body with hints of cherry and the perfect touch of spice. Pair with a candlelight and a starry night.

Avaline makes clean, delicious wines with organic grapes and little else. Full of natural... Read More

A vivid ruby color with a garnet tinge and super-restrained nose of licorice, oak bark, smoke, wood, cigar box, leather, dark chocolate, smashed violets and prunes. It has a fresh subtleness. Full-bodied and elegant on the palate... Read More

This is a really beautiful, seductive wine with chocolate, walnuts, currants and some tobacco. Full-bodied, with a supple tannin texture and a flavorful finish. Succulent. Blend of 60% merlot and 40% cabernet sauvignon. Second... Read More

Wild cherries, mushrooms and aniseed on the nose. Some cinnamon. It’s full-bodied, plump and rich, with soft tannins and a ripe and spicy finish.

Deep garnet red appearance. On the nose a range of aromas of black fruit blackberry, blueberry, and ripe plum are wrapped in spicy notes of clove and cinnamon. On the palate it is powerful, broad and structured, with smooth tannins... Read More

The 2022 The Chocolate Block comprises Syrah (77%, which is slightly higher than usual), Grenache (9%), Cinsault (8%), Cabernet Sauvignon (5%) and Viognier (1%), with around 70% of the production estate-grown. It is whole berry... Read More

Roasted herbs, olives, black plums and licorice on the nose. It’s medium- to full-bodied, with savory and spicy undertones and fleshy tannins.

Banfi Col di Sasso offers a bouquet of black cherries and spice. Rich with soft tannins, delivering persistent black-fruit flavors and subtle hints of smoke, with a lingering finish.

Ideal with pizza, pasta, grilled meat and poultry.... Read More

This is really nicely done with plenty of blackberries, dark chocolate and toasted oak. Medium to full body. Needs to come together. A blend of 68% cabernet sauvignon, 30% merlot and 2% cabernet franc. Second wine of Château... Read More

Owned by the Aubert family, this estate has produced a well-balanced wine. Tannins and spice lie easily with the berry fruits and final touches of dark chocolate. It will age well. Drink from 2023.

So much purity and definition, this is a beautiful wine with clarity of flavour. Touches of grilled almond and rosemary, mocha, smoke and coffee bean, there is so much freshness, with juice rushing in between the muscles and a... Read More

Juicy and compact now, with dark currant, blackberry and fig notes at the core, surrounded by lots of warm earth, singed alder and tobacco leaf notes. Cast iron note helps extend the finish, with the fruit and earth notes keeping... Read More

Aromas of ripe plums and dark berries with hints of cloves, cardamom and toasted walnuts. Medium-bodied with chalky tannins that are a little grippy, but still quite velvety and polished. Juicy finish.

This wine offers rich tannins and dense black fruits in equal proportions. The structure, with the dry core, shows great promise and the wine is definitely worth aging. Drink from 2024.

At five years old, the tannins are still young and holding on tight, but the blackberry and cassis fruits have both juice and depth. This is a vintage where the phenolics are high, and there is an inky depth overall. Mint and... Read More

This 430-acre estate has produced an elegant, fruity wine. The wine comes from vines on the edge of the Pauillac appellation, with deep gravel soil that gives structure to the approachable black fruits. Drink from 2025.... Read More

The nose is open and very expressive. On swirling the glass, the wine’s rich aromas come through with ripe black fruits taking centre-stage. Discreet notes of oak integrate harmoniously in an explosion of fruit aromas. The... Read More

82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot

Château Lilian Ladouys 2019, a vintage that is fresh yet sumptuous. The tannins are velvety, the balance exceptional: here is a wine similar in some ways to 2016 or 2018, yet even fresher and more aromatic.

Blend: 57% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 6% Petit Verdot

Espresso crema and melted black licorice aromas give way to a lush range of cassis, plum reduction and blackberry confiture flavors that roll through with authority. Long finish is carried by a buried graphite note and hint of... Read More

The vintage has been blended and it has kept its promises. The color is a deep red with purple reflections. On the nose, aromas of ripe fruit (black cherry, blackcurrant, blackberry...) are made more complex by toasty and licorice... Read More

This wine, made up of 65% Grenache and 35% Syrah, still exudes freshness with a raspberry-blueberry mix of fruit on the nose that plays double-Dutch jump rope on the palate with a floral streak of medium acidity. The wine is balanced... Read More