The 2009 Cos d’Estournel is one of the greatest young wines I have ever tasted ... in the world! An extraordinary effort I tasted on two separate occasions, this blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest primarily Merlot with a dollop of Cabernet Franc has a whopping 14.5% alcohol, but a remarkably normal pH of 3.69. Kudos to Jean-Guillaume Prats and owner Michel Reybier for this amazing wine made from yields of 33 hectoliters per hectare. It will be a legendary claret that should last for 50-60 years. A black/purple color is accompanied by aromas of graphite, ink, creme de cassis, blackberries, cedar, and incense. Full-bodied and unctuously textured, with an ethereal personality, tons of nuances, and a burgeoning complexity, it is an enormously well-endowed, fresh, perfectly balanced tour de force in winemaking. As mentioned above, it should drink well for 50-60 years. This wine possesses this vintage’s classic characteristics of enormous power, massive fruit, and extraordinary freshness and precision - largely unprecedented, particularly for Cabernet-based wines in the Medoc. (Tasted two times.)

A very bold, ripe and complex wine with excellent concentration and a warm, engaging personality (cinnamon and allspice) that's hard to resist. With aeration a hint of dried fruit character emerges. Massive, yet polished finish. It’s been rated 100 in the past. We will see. Drink or hold. (Horizontal Tasting, London, 2019) - Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com, March 2019

A wine that caused plenty of arguments among critics and wine lovers at the time, and 15 years on it remains full on and pumped up. Silky texture, smoked caramel, intense cracked pepper, cloves, incense, olive peel, blackberry and damson fruits, impactful but a little too much even now. The terroir character is just starting to assert itself, and this is a one point upscore since I tasted it at the ten years on point. 100% new oak.

Quality 885 | Brand 996 | Economics 911 |
Quality: Predicted life of 15 years, one of the longest drinking windows in its peer group, which averages 9 years Brand: Strong restaurant presence, featuring on 48 of the world's top wine lists, including De Librije Economics: More traded at auction than its peers, its top 5 vintages having seen 3,203 75cl equivalent bottles traded in the past year Production: Higher production than its peer group average of 137,727 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

Saturated dark ruby. Exotic, port-like aromas of blackberry liqueur, mocha and grilled meat. Fat, lush, saline and sweet, conveying an impression of extreme port-like ripeness. Huge, mouth-saturating flavors of dark berries and chocolate. Not heavy but doesn't exactly dance on the palate. Does this need years to shed some of its baby fat or will it always be a bit monolithic? Finishes with a boatload of ripe, broad tannins and palate-staining fruit. In a distinctly extreme style, and yet this maintained its sweetness of fruit for days in the recorked bottle. This is bound to be one of the most controversial wines of the vintage. I look forward to checking back in on it in 10 or 15 years.

The 2009 Cos d’Estournel is exactly as I predict on the nose, almost overwhelming with over-ripe black plum, raisin, fig and black olive, smudged and lacking the precision and tension of the 2009 Montrose. The palate is sweet and cloying on the entry, hedonistic and voluminous, yet unequivocally bereft of tension and sense of terroir on the finish. Frankly, it is ageing exactly as I predicted when I first tasted it from barrel. Not my style yet still enjoyable. Tasted at BI Wines & Spirits' Ten Year On tasting. - vinous.com, March 2019

(a blend of 65% cabernet sauvignon, 33% merlot, and 2% cabernet franc; 80% new oak; 33 hectoliters per hectare; 14.5% alcohol; IPT 99; 56% selection for the grand vin Inky purple. Extremely ripe aromas of red fruits macerated in alcohol, espresso and dark chocolate (almost Banyuls- or port-like), with a more refreshing floral element emerging with aeration. Enters the mouth smooth, sweet and floral, with a velvety texture, but then turns slightly hollow in the mid-palate, hinting at overripe red cherry and dark plum flavors. Finishes dry and a touch astringent (heat-stressed merlot?). By no means a bad wine, but this version of Cos has more in common with a late-harvested negroamaro from southern Italy or an overripe fruit bomb from Napa than a fine Medoc wine. As much as I liked the 2008, I find this wine overdone, and I don't believe it will improve much with time.

[65CS/33M/2CF] Dense, raisiny ripe fruit to smell; powerful, muscular wine with a mass of fruit, alcohol, extract and tannin - huge and forceful. Abundant, dry, slightly raisiny fruit, the refreshing vitality gone, and a slightly fierce presence instead, long and complex in the mouth, spicy, potent, and persistent. New world come to Bordeaux with a considerable tenacity of flavour, and a marked bitter chocolate finish. Jean-Guillaume Prats agrees that it will be controversial, and argues that "the issue is a stylistic one, not a quality one". I'm not at all sure you can really separate the two. It is very good of its type, I acknowledge, and that is how I have scored it. But that type is almost unrecognisable as claret as most of us know it (have known it?). Can't see this ever being pleasurable for a palate like mine... It raise the issue, stuck with scores as we are, of quite how to mark such a wine. What are we marking for? One mark for power to impress: 20/20? One mark for drinkability: 14/20? And a third for investment potential? Oh, and possibly one for claret 'typicity'....? It certainly draws attention to itself, and perhaps that is a large part of its point. 2025-50+

This was always a controversial wine, seen by many as pushing ripeness and extraction too far. Deep blackish crimson. Less concentrated than the Montrose 2009 but with intense fragrance. On the palate it really opens out but the flavour is decidedly medicinal. A bit jagged and tough in terms of impact and obviously very extracted. (JR)

100pts - Deep garnet colored, the 2009 Cos d'Estournel features a myriad of wonderfully intense notes, including blackcurrant pastilles, redcurrant jelly, kirsch and blueberry compote with hints of rose hip tea, sautéed herbs, underbrush, pencil shavings and Indian spices. Full-bodied, rich and opulently fruited in the mouth, it has beautifully plush tannins and fantastic freshness, finishing very long and very spicy. - Lisa Perrotti-Brown, March 2019

100pts One of the greatest young wines I have ever tasted, the monumental 2009 Cos d’Estournel has lived up to its pre-bottling potential. A remarkable effort from winemaking guru Jean-Guillaume Prats and owner Michel Reybier, this blend of 65% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Merlot (33%) and a touch of Cabernet Franc (2%) was cropped at 33 hectoliters per hectare. It boasts an inky/black/purple color along with an extraordinary bouquet of white flowers interwoven with blackberry and blueberry liqueur, incense, charcoal and graphite. The wine hits the palate with extraordinary purity, balance and intensity as well as perfect equilibrium, and a seamless integration of tannin, acidity, wood and alcohol. An iconic wine as well as a remarkable achievement, it is the greatest Cos d’Estournel ever produced. It is approachable enough at present that one could appreciate it with several hours of decanting, but it will not hit its prime for a decade, and should age effortlessly for a half century. - Robert M. Parker, December 2011

Deep garnet colored, the 2009 Cos d'Estournel features a myriad of wonderfully intense notes, including blackcurrant pastilles, redcurrant jelly, kirsch and blueberry compote with hints of rose hip tea, sautéed herbs, underbrush, pencil shavings and Indian spices. Full-bodied, rich and opulently fruited in the mouth, it has beautifully plush tannins and fantastic freshness, finishing very long and very spicy.