The Bonnes-Mares Grand Cru 1999 has a quite exuberant bouquet that is very floral, like somebody shoving a bouquet of freshly picked violets under your nostrils. Looking further, one finds shaved black truffles and blackcurrant pastilles, aromatics that gain confidence and chutzpah with time. The palate is medium-bodied with black cherries and hints of tobacco. This is firm and quite rigid like many 1999s, impressive more than giving at the moment, a Bonnes-Mares that clearly requires another decade in bottle to show what it is capable of.

(from magnums that were shipped directly from the domaine and tasted in Hong Kong). At this point the '99 Bonnes Mares still closely resembles the same wine in 750 ml format (see the review herein). A brooding if not inexpressive nose features notes of earth, soft spice, dark and notably ripe dark berry fruit. There is outstanding concentration to the big-bodied firm, reserved, overtly powerful flavors that are underpinned by a still very solid wall of tannins on the sappy and somewhat austere finish that delivers outstanding length. This remains relatively closed and a wine that is clearly still on the way up and in this format I wouldn't touch a bottle for at least another decade and 12 to 15 years would be better.

– Burghound.com. Tasted: Apr 2015

Ruby-red. Musky, perfumed aromas of blueberry, blackberry, kirsch and saddle leather. Very dense and sweet but sharply delineated black fruit flavors; very full for the vintage but quite backward. Impressively long on the aftertaste, with substantial but very fine tannins.

The 1999 Comte de Vogüé Bonnes-Mares (magnum) is big and concentrated, with considerable richness and no hard edges, but no real energy, either. Sadly, the 1999 Bonnes-Mares never fully comes together as the elements remain disjointed. This is an especially dark, heavy Bonnes-Mares with little vibrancy or sense of direction for a wine of this level.

This exhibited the domaine's trademark dominance of dryness and severity over fruit (though maybe this will change with the recent arrival of a new winemaker ). Tannins were still in evidence but there didn't seem to be quite enough seductive fruit to triumph over them. (JR)