The 2008 Léoville Las Cases has a backward, broody, earthy bouquet with intense tobacco and graphite aromas, more like a Pauillac than a Saint Julien, no surprise given that it lies on the border. The palate is very impressive: layers of tobacco-tinged black fruit, sea salt and graphite. This is very precise and harmonious with a persistent and multi-layered finish that leaves you mightily impressed. (Tasted at BI Wine & Spirit’s annual 10-Year On tasting.)

– vinous.com, Feb 2018

Quality 945 | Brand 994 | Economics 919 | buzz brand, investment staple
Quality: The highest Quality score in its peer group for the 2008 vintage, at 945 compared to a peer group average of 717 Brand: Strong restaurant presence, featuring on 42 of the world's top wine lists, including Tim Raue Economics: Above its peer group average price of £39 for the 2008 vintage Production: Lower production than its peer group average of 186,000 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

Another underrated vintage for this estate, the 2008 Léoville Las Cases is a vibrant, youthfully primary wine that's aging at a slower pace than the 2009. Unfurling to reveal aromas of dark berries and cherries mingled with subtle hints of pencil shavings and nicely integrated new oak, it's medium to full-bodied, taut and layered, with tangy acids, ripe tannins and a long, penetrating finish. Displaying compelling purity and energy, it's a serious Las Cases that will richly reward the patient but which is still some way away from its drinking window.

Great to taste this alongside the other two names from this trilogy of St Juliens that once formed the vast Lionville estate. In 1855, Las Cases was owned by Théodore Galhaud, a prominent Bordeaux wine merchant. It's right on brand in 2008, muscular and brooding, and a little reserved, needs serious coaxing, and I would give two to three hours in a carafe to uncurl those bilberry and blackcurrant fruits that sit alongside pencil lead, cigar box, slate, all thos classic St Julien signatures that this property delivers so consistently. 50% new oak, Delon family owners in 2017 (as they had been throughout the 20th century).

A classic style of Las Cases that is somewhat masculine for the vintage, tannic and backward, and less formidably concentrated than the 2009 or 2010, the 2008 needs 7-8 years of cellaring. Dense purple, the aromatics are closed, but with coaxing and aggressive swirling, notes of crushed rock, black currants and some forest floor notes emerge. Impressively built, medium to full-bodied, layered and stunningly concentrated, this is a sleeper vintage for Leoville Las Cases that should improve considerably, given how closed it was the day I tasted it. It is another 30+ year wine from proprietor Jean-Hubert Delon.

Robert Parker (Wine Advocate #194, May 2011)

Full ruby-red. Deep, mineral-driven aromas of cassis, camphor, peat and spicy oak. Large-scaled and deep; at once powerful and seamless, with impressively concentrated, sharply delineated black fruit and mineral flavors. Seriously structured wine but at the same time quite suave. The rising, very long finish stains the palate with black fruits.

(78% cabernet sauvignon, 12% cabernet franc and 10% merlot; includes 10% press wine; 13.4% alcohol; 65% new oak; from a yield of 37.9 hectoliters per hectare) Full, deep ruby-red. Beautiful nose redolent of violet, blackcurrant and minerals. Balanced and pure on entry, with almost sweet ripe red cherry and marzipan flavors, this is wonderfully suave and seamless, but with great purity and precision of flavor and terrific inner-palate perfume and lift. With a touch more length, it may well have been the wine of the vintage.

Creamy vanilla notes on the nose. Flashy and overripe in style; not over-extracted, but certainly trying very hard to grab your attention. Not subtle, but the results are unavoidably impressive, with impressive length. (RH)