Very ripe for a second wine this is now delicious thanks to the rich blackberry and cassis fruit, full supple tannins and long finish that's simultaneously dry and creamy. Where is that porterhouse steak? Drink or hold. (Horizontal Tasting, London, 2019) - Stuart Pigott, jamessuckling.com, March 2019

The estate's second wine, the sexy 2009 Pavillon Rouge du Chateau Margaux, offers lots of black raspberry, cedar and foresty/underbrush notes in its round, generous, full-bodied, seductive embrace of black fruits interwoven with floral notes results. This seamless second wine is one of the finest Chateau Margaux has made to date. Enjoy it over the next two decades.

Robert Parker (Wine Advocate #199, Feb 2012)

The 2009 Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux has a very pure bouquet with blackberry, raspberry coulis, cedar and light violet aromas, quite intense and graining power in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly powdery tannin. The acidity is very well judged, a completely harmonious Pavillon Rouge with just the right amount of spice to enhance the finish. Excellent. Tasted at BI Wines & Spirits' Ten Year On tasting. - vinous.com, March 2019

Medium to deep garnet colored, the 2009 Pavillon Rouge du Chateau Margaux features an expressive, beautifully floral nose of dried roses and candied violets over a core of kirsch, Black Forest cake and fragrant earth with touches of black tea and cigar box. Medium-bodied, the palate is soft, plush, elegant and open-knit with an effortlessness to its character and a perfumed finish.

The dark ruby/purple-hued 2009 Pavillon Rouge de Chateau Margaux offers a big, sweet kiss of spring flowers intermixed with blueberries and blackberries, a silky texture, and a dense, concentrated, but seamless mouthfeel. This glorious wine should drink well for 20 or more years. (Tasted once.) Paul Pontallier told me they had never had such levels of concentration and tannin as they did in 2009, exceeding anything they ever produced since the Mentzelopoulos family purchased this property in 1978. Pontallier believes 1996 is the closest stylistically, but 2009 is significantly more concentrated than that vintage. I do not disagree because tasting the second wine, Pavillon Rouge du Chateau Margaux, demonstrates that the 2009 is far superior to almost every Chateau Margaux made in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, except for the 1961 and 1953.

(a blend of 67% cabernet sauvignon, 29% merlot, and 4% petit verdot; represents 41% of the total estate production, which is 10% less than usual) Bright ruby. Knockout nose melds violet, red cherry, milk chocolate and menthol. Wonderfully concentrated and primary, with a soft texture and captivating inner-mouth perfume to the red cherry and mineral flavors. An impeccably balanced wine with impressive vinosity and grip. Finishes with sweet tannins and excellent length. This very dense wine is probably the best Pavillon Rouge ever made and is my candidate for the best second wine of the year along with Le Clarence of Haut-Brion. Pontallier believes this is the first Pavillon ever that can rate with some less successful Chateau Margaux bottlings of the past.

Quality 864 | Brand 928 | Economics 928 | buzz brand, investment staple
Quality: Above the average quality score of its peer group for the 2009 vintage, 762 Brand: We found this wine on 14 of the world's top restaurant wine lists, including Pollen Street Social Economics: Above its peer group average price of £63 for the 2009 vintage Production: Higher production than its peer group average of 112,956 bottles

- www.wine-lister.com June 2017

[67CS/29M/4PV] Gently scented, subtle ripe fruit and minerals on th nose; beautifully balanced middleweight wine with a lovely core of fruit, a very refined tannin and a fresh acidity; sweetly, juicily, classily ripe; complex, intense in flavour, sweet, pure, scented and with a marked minerality; vivid, gently classy,beautifully sustained along the palate and very persisten in aftertaste. By some way the finest Pavillon yet. 2015-25+

Tasted blind. Greyish crimson. Smudgy nose. This wine has no real core or drive. Lacks fruit in the middle. (JR)