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The aromas here are crazy with flowers, mushroom, forest floor, and fruit. It seems like I am walking through a row of the vines in Cheval Blanc when I have my nose in the glass. It’s full-bodied, with fabulous layers of ultra-fine tannins and milk chocolate, raspberries, and a phenomenal finish. Truly one of the greatest Chevals ever. Better than 2009. Try in 2020.James Suckling | 100 JSShowing even better than a bottle a few years ago, the 2010 Chateau Cheval Blanc is perfection in a glass and wine doesn’t get any better. As with the 2009, it’s a powerful, concentrated Cheval Blanc, yet it has a slightly dark, cooler profile in its smoky black fruits, graphite, new leather, crushed rocks and cured meat aromas and flavors. Where the 2009 hits the palate with a sunny, sexy style, this stays more inward and masculine, yet it still has incredible sweetness of fruit, flawless integration of its fruit, tannins, and acidity, a great mid-palate, and a finish that goes on for over a minute. It opens up with time in the glass and offers incredible pleasure today, with an exotic masculine yet sexy style, but feel free to enjoy this legendary wine any time over the coming 3-4 decades.Jeb Dunnuck | 100 JDThe 2010 is one of the most impressive two-year-old Cheval Blancs I have tasted in 34 years in this profession. The final blend of 54% Cabernet Franc and 46% Merlot has the tell-tale berry/floral nose with subtle hints of menthol, blueberry, raspberry and flowers in addition to some forest floor and a delicate touch of lead pencil shavings. The wine exhibits more structure and density than it did from barrel, and it was already remarkable then. The foresty/floral notes seem to linger and linger in this surprisingly full-bodied, powerful Cheval Blanc, yet it possesses a very healthy pH that should ensure enormous longevity. Dense purple in color, and a bigger, richer wine than usual, this is one Cheval Blanc that will probably need a decade of cellaring. I like the description from the estate’s administrator, Pierre Lurton, who said it tasted like “liquid cashmere,” a perfect expression, despite the wine’s structure and intensity. This is another 50-year wine from this amazingly structured, rich vintage.Robert Parker | 100 RPThis is the finest Cheval Blanc for many years. It is, quite simply, magnificent. The wine shows the greatness of Cabernet Franc in the vintage, with 57% of the variety in the blend. It is beautifully structured and perfumed, with velvety tannins, balanced acidity and swathes of black-currant and black-cherry fruits. It’s well on course to becoming a legendary wine.Wine Enthusiast | 100 WEThis is stone-cold shut down right now, but why worry? You’ll want to wait at least a decade before breaching a bottle as massively endowed as this, with loads of loamy bass notes thumping along underneath a riveting track of licorice snap, pastis-steeped black currant fruit, maduro tobacco and espresso. And then there’s an echo of petrichor at the very end that hints at the aromatic fireworks to come with cellaring. Should compete for wine of the vintage. Best from 2020 through 2040.Wine Spectator | 98 WS(Château Cheval Blanc) The 2010 Cheval Blanc is also 14.5 percent in alcohol and was made up with a fairly high percentage of merlot for this estate, with the blend comprised of only fifty-six percent cabernet franc and forty-four percent merlot. It is an extremely powerful young vintage of Cheval Blanc and worlds away from the refined and opulently seductive style of the 2009 here. The bouquet offers up a dense and very ripe blend of black cherries, menthol, coffee bean, a good base of gravelly soil, cigar smoke and new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and seamless on the attack, with plenty of overt ripeness in evidence, a rock solid core of fruit and plenty of substantial, well-integrated tannins on the very long and powerful finish. This will need plenty of time in the cellar to blossom, but should probably turn out to be a fine bottle with sufficient bottle age. It avoids the pitfalls of sur maturité, questionable balance and uncovered alcohol that plague so many of its neighbors in St. Émilion in this vintage, but it is a rather atypically broad-shouldered vintage for this great estate. (Drink between 2025-2075)John Gilman | 92-93+ JGThe 2010 Cheval Blanc has another extravagant bouquet with ample red cherries, raspberry preserve, mulberry, fig and singed leather. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins, quite dense and assertive, backward with a sinewy finish that just feels a little forced compared to some of the other wines in this flight. With time in the glass, the new oak seems to dominate the finish. I have definitely had far superior bottles, but that’s the way it goes. Tasted blind at Farr Vintners 10-Year On Bordeaux horizontal.Vinous Media | 93 VM

An underrated vintage, the 2011 Cheval Blanc is evolving brilliantly. Wafting from the glass with aromas of smoky cassis, blackberries, loamy soil, tobacco leaf, bitter chocolate, mint and violets, it’s full-bodied, velvety and multidimensional, with a layered core of fruit, rich and powdery structuring tannin and a long, resonant finish. While the 2009 and 2010 are more powerful and unctuous, readers who prize Cheval Blanc for its extraordinary complexity and unique perfume might well prefer the 2011, as it is a wine that could come from nowhere else.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 97 RPA vintage that’s being drunk with abandon in France these days, the 2011 Chateau Cheval Blanc showed beautifully, and the firm tannins that define this vintage are nowhere to be found here. Sweet black fruits, spice, incense, and exotic flowers define the bouquet and it has classic Cheval Blanc complexity. Medium to full-bodied, beautifully balanced, with sweet tannins and a great finish, it’s a beautiful Saint-Emilion to drink over the coming 2-3 decades.Jeb Dunnuck | 96 JDStill very youthful a decade on, with fresh notes of raspberry rising above the black fruit core. Nuances of cedar and a touch of violet are beginning to emerge, and despite the drier vintage there’s great freshness to the finish in this otherwise opulent and silky wine. A great potential for cellaring. (Drink between 2022-2040)Decanter | 95 DECThis is an opulent, dense wine, very perfumed while also structured. It is complex, full of rich fruit that pours through the wood and dark tannin. It just hints at a more exuberant future, flavored with the ripest fruits while still keeping freshness. Drink from 2020.Wine Enthusiast | 95 WEThe 2011 Cheval Blanc has an elegant, quite refined bouquet with brambly red fruit, scorched earth, terracotta and sage, very complex and harmonious. Could this be Figeac? [Post-script. No, but not far off!] The palate is medium-bodied with rounded tannins, quite plush and sensual, rich for this vintage with plenty of concentrated, quite sweet and spicy, hoisin-tinged fruit on the precise finish. This is a very fine Saint-Émilion. Tasted blind at the annual 10-Year-On tasting.Vinous Media | 94 VMOffers a loamy, dense feel, with the vintage’s briary grip tumbled with dark plum, blackberry and black currant fruit. Anise and tobacco notes fill out the finish, which expands steadily with air, showing added range and echoes of bittersweet cocoa and tobacco. Seems to have a lot in reserve. Best from 2016 through 2030. 7,915 cases made.Wine Spectator | 94 WS(Château Cheval Blanc) The 2011 Cheval Blanc is a very lovely wine this year, with depth, purity and lovely refinement. The classic and very beautiful nose offers up scents of black cherries, dark berries, coffee bean, cigar smoke, a touch of tobacco leaf, dark soil tones and nutty, luxe new oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, pure and texturally alluring, with a fine core of fruit, lovely focus and balance and a long, firmly tannic finish. The tannins here are quite substantial and will take some extended cellaring to soften, but this is a very, very successful example of the vintage. (Drink between 2025-2060).John Gilman | 94 JGDeep and rich with a lovely balance of ripe black berries, bitter chocolate and smoke. A ripe and generous style, the fine tannins already nicely softened. Long, supple and gentle finish that’s very appealing, but slightly simple. Drink or hold. Château Quintus vertical tasting. SP.James Suckling | 92 JS