100-Point Wines

wines

The 2005 Ausone is a perfect wine of the vintage. It displays crushed rock, spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry fruit, a full-bodied mouthfeel, stunning purity and richness, and perfect harmony among all of its component parts (acidity, tannin, wood, alcohol and extract). Still youthful, but oh, so promising, this wine should be set aside for another decade and drunk over the following 50-75 years.Robert Parker | 100 RPI love the tobacco, berry, cigar box, toasty oak, ripe fruit and fresh mushroom flavors in this full-bodied red, which has ultralayered tannins and vanilla, new oak and berry character. Powerful and superconcentrated, with great length. This is a muscular, full-throttle wine, racing very, very fast. Best after 2019. 1,330 cases made.Wine Spectator | 100 WSDeep ruby-red. Penetrating aromas of cassis and minerals. The nose does not prepare one for this huge, improbably sweet, palate-saturating wine, whose pungent minerality and epic intensity makes it solid as a rock. The three-dimensional texture here is uncanny, and the wine’s explosive finishing flavors of dark berries, bitter chocolate and minerals persist for minutes. This must be one of the three or four greatest young Bordeaux I’ve ever tasted. The numbers here: 14.28% alcohol, 3.55 pH and an IPT between 80 and 85. This will go on for several decades, and I would not be at all surprised if it shut down in bottle for a very long time.Vinous Media | 98+ VMA superb wine that brings together all the qualities of this vintage. It has great fruit, layers of acidity, dark tannins and a velvety texture, without losing the sense of place that sets great Bordeaux apart.Wine Enthusiast | 98 WE

An utterly perfect wine from Alain Vauthier, the 2015 Château Ausone offers off the hook notes of crème de cassis, black raspberries, toasted spice and dried flowers, with more floral and mineral characteristics developing with time in the glass. Amazingly deep, full-bodied, pure and ethereally textured, with building density and tannin, it’s one of those wines that need to be tasted to be believed. Unfortunately, the production is minuscule (and expensive). A wine that will make your heart rate jump, give it 4-5 years of cellaring and I suspect it will keep for as long as you’d like to hang on to bottles. It’s a tour de force in wine and the wine of the vintage in 2015.Jeb Dunnuck | 100 JDThis magnificent wine brings together the great fruit of the vintage in a complex structure. The acidity, ripe tannins and power of this dense wine are enormous, as is its aging potential. With that acidity and tannic structure, and with the perfumes from the Cabernet Franc, this wine will evolve slowly and with a measured pace. Drink from 2028.Wine Enthusiast | 100 WE(Château Ausone St.-Emilion, France) Very intense and aromatic Ausone with rose petals, fresh herbs, dark berries and raspberries. Full body and great intensity and brightness. Purity and focus reminiscent of crushed grapes. Such beauty, greatness and elegance to this wine. Goes on for minutes. Needs four or five years to come completely together but so long and beautiful. Try drinking in 2021.James Suckling | 99 JSComposed of 50% Cabernet Franc and 50% Merlot aged in French oak barrels, 85% new, for 20 months, the 2015 Ausone features a deep garnet-purple color and comes bounding out of the glass with expressive plum preserves, wild blueberries and cherry pie aromas plus fragrant nuances of roses, licorice, Indian spices, baker’s chocolate, new leather and cedar chest plus a touch of underbrush. Big, rich, opulent and full-bodied in the mouth, it is laden with bold blue and black fruits, superbly supported by very firm, very finely grained tannins and wonderfully seamless freshness, finishing with long-lingering exotic spice hints.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 99 RPThe 2015 Ausone has a detailed, precise bouquet whose intense, graphite-infused black fruit gains intensity with each swirl. This is very sophisticated and compelling. The poised, medium-bodied palate delivers filigreed tannin, perfect acidity and an extraordinarily persistent finish that outclasses almost everything around it. This is outstanding and surely represents one of the wines of the vintage. Tasted blind at the Southwold 2015 Bordeaux tasting.Vinous Media | 98 VM(Château Ausone, St-Émilion, Red) 50% each Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Suave texture but so much power behind. Fine, fragrant nose of pure berry fruit then real density and depth on the palate. Layered fruit and tannins but finely etched. Clean, long and persistent.Decanter | 96 DEC

The 2018 Ausone is a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc and 40% Merlot. Deep garnet-purple in color, rather predictably, the nose is almost completely shut-down on first sniff, taking considerable aeration to begin to reveal its jaw-dropping perfume of ripe black cherries, wild blueberries and plum preserves, leading to suggestions of candied violets, molten chocolate, licorice and crushed rocks with subtle cedar and pencil lead hints. The medium to full-bodied palate (14.5% alcohol) is so tightly wound and nuanced at this stage, it requires a lot of focus unravel all that is going on here. In short: a lot. The ripe, rich, black and blue fruit layers eventually give way to the beautifully cerebral earthy/minerally subtext, carried by fantastically well-knit tension, delivering an incredibly long, foundation-shaking finish. If the earth doesn’t move when you drink this, you’re probably not doing it right.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 100 RPThis is deep and ripped, coming out you like a powerhouse, then it stops, tiptoes away, then rises up to slowly stretch out through the palate, displaying incredible tension and length. Graphite, flint, earth, crushed stone, blackberry, cassis and a juicy salinity from the scrape of limestone. Pretty clear this is going to power through the next 30-40 years effortlessly. And it just keeps going. Clearly survived the drought of the summer without so much as breaking a sweat. 3.6pH. Average age of the vines is 52 years old. A yield of 38hl/ha. Drinking Window 2028 - 2050.Decanter | 100 DECThe 2018 Ausone is mind-blowing. The aromatics alone are mesmerizing. I don’t know what more to say. Cabernet Franc is so expressive, so vibrant so nuanced. Rose petal, cinnamon, star anise and sage meld into a core of red fleshed fruit. The 2018 doesn’t impress with opulence or richness, rather it is a Saint-Émilion that is all about persistence and energy. I won’t be at all surprised if it merits a higher score in the future. Readers who can find it should not hesitate. The 2018 is a viscerally thrilling wine of the highest level.Antonio Galloni | 99 AGRatcheting up the intensity, the 2018 Château Ausone has an essence of limestone-like character as well as thrilling notes of blackberries, black raspberries, white flowers, truffle, forest floor, and graphite. Possessing full-bodied richness, a deep, beautifully concentrated mid-palate, ample tannins, and a great finish, this is a powerful, layered Ausone that’s going to need 5-7 years of bottle age but should knock your socks off over the following 25+ years. The 2018 is a blend of 60% Cabernet Franc and 40% Merlot, brought up in a mix of new and used barrels.Jeb Dunnuck | 96-99 JDThe perfumes of this wine just pour from the glass. They measure up to the promise of the black tannins and dark, dense fruits, the monumental structure and juicy black-plum flavors. The whole ethos of this wine is towards long-term aging to great power and intensity for the future. Drink from 2028.Wine Enthusiast | 98 WEFragrant black and blue berry aromas with a whiff of old balsamic vinegar and some volatile character. Ripe and rich with a surprisingly mature personality. Plenty of richness and structure, but it doesn’t quite have the clarity of the best wines of this vintage. Drink or hold. Château Quintus vertical tasting. SP.James Suckling | 93 JS