Red Wine

A rich effort from this well-known property in St Christoly. Lovely rich mouthfeel, ripe and tannic with a luscious long finish. Low acidity suggests drinking this wine young, say 2014-2021.

95 points Wine Advocate "The soils are calcareous rocks with a little bit of topsoil to keep some freshness and control the Cabernet tannins. The wine has the granular tannins of Cabernet, the only giveaway of the grapes used, as the sense of place seems to be more intense than the fruit. There is more ripeness in this 2012. This is a great expression of the calcareous soils through Cabernet Sauvignon. Drink 2015-2025. "

Slinky smooth with ruby-bright fruit

Rated as the best Napa Cabernet Sauvignon in Decanter’s panel tasting, this wonderful wine is dark, dense yet smooth and juicy with ripe blackberries and dense plum; juicy and concentrated.

92 points Wine Enthusiast "Flavors of saucy, herbal plum and blackberry come with notes of tobacco and olive, while this is drawing and gritty on the finish, with a roasted quality. "

Valle de Uco, one of the leading areas of Mendoza. Zuccardi Q Cabernet Sauvignon is a wonderfully full wine with rich concentrated cassis fruit merged with chocolate, coffee and herbs. Great complexity and length.

A lovely blend of Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon, that is made without oak for young drinking, more in a Loire mould than Bordeaux. It's fresh and fruity, very easy to drink on its own or with steak, sausages, cutlets. A real joy, and a bargain.

Dusty tannin, plush black fruit. Quite ripe. Big acidity. Ripe plum black cherry violet. Tannin well exevuted and structured. Generous

First Class rating from CWM "Sweet blackcurrant nose, creaminess on palate, jam packed, but structured fruit, tannin, and acidity" Also loved by Wine Advocate's Neal Martin who awarded it 91-93 points who calls it 'gorgeous, seductive and a temptress of St Estephe'.

Listrac is a commune close to Margaux that fans of Bordeaux should really check out. Fonreaud is one of its chief exponents and currently producing terrific wines that, were they to have Margaux on the label, should cost much more. The 2016 is one its best ever wines, It has very good structure underlying delicious dark fruits. Fresh acidity too helps make the wine sing from the first sip.

Lots of spice/savoury notes, tar and smoke, a great big whack of dark dense cassis. A fun packed, fruit-packed joy of a wine at the price.

Deep purple in colour this Chilean offering has rich ripe cherries and juicy plums on the nose with flavours of jammy blackcurrents and blackberries on the palate. Medium bodied and well balanced.

This wine is from an area generally associated with sherry production, but in fact Cadiz has a long forgotten tradition of making red wines, with records dating back to the 14th century. Owned by the renowned Gonzalez Byass family, Finca Moncloa is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Tintilla de Rota and Petit Verdot aged for 12 months in French and American oak barrels. A cherry red wine with intense aromas of red and black fruits and a balanced palate with notes of fruit, spice and oak.

A sister wine to the excellent Margaux property Ch d'Arsac, made to the same very high standard but coming from a vineyard just outside the Margaux appellation. 50/50 Merlot/Cabernet, the wine is perfumed and elegant, very nice to drink already, with room to improve in the coming 5 years. Highly recommended.

Chateau Musar Red 2012 has a dark burgundy colour, a nose of matured stone fruits, plums and figs with liquorice and spicy notes. It has big developed ripe fruit on the nose and a bold taste profile of juicy, black fruits plus mocha and leather and a beautiful lingering finish.

Deep ruby, savoury, sweet spiced nose nice acid, complex, slightly stewed, quite soft tannin, mellow, good length

50% Cabernet Sauvignon, 48% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc. Spicy new oak amid bright red fruits. Smooth and sweet berry fruit, with a high kick of spice.

Very ripe and fruit with lots of mature berry and plum character. Full body, round tannins and a savoury finish. Juicy.

90 points Neal Martin Fragrant with graphite and lightly peppery black fruit, nicely dusty/rocky and just a touch of cassis leaf. More leafy on the palate, balanced by some sweet plum flavours.

Rosabrook Wines was one of the first wine producing pioneers of the Margaret River wine region. Full and juicy on the palate, flavours of blackcurrant, blackberry and black cherry are underpinned by ripe tannins and a touch of smokey oak. Very silky smooth on the finish with notes of minty eucalyptus.

Lebanon's Great Survivor. French heritage, famous for epic longevity. Eccentric and fascinating.

Mid ruby, garnet rim, ripe and juicy, sweet fruit, lovely and a bargain for real Pauillac.

The sexiest Cab-based Tuscan, no contest. Decanter 95. Parker 95 "beautiful... profound elegance of this classic vintage... layer after layer of dark fruit, oak spice, chocolate...tobacco... a big personality".

Alternative label to Ch Haute Breton Larigaudiere, and much easier to say, this is classic Margaux at an affordable price. This wine is a deep ruby-red with intense, refined ripe red fruit aromas and elegant notes of vanilla and violet. It starts out powerful on the palate with a long, fresh aftertaste..

A combination of black berries, eucylyptus and mocha flavours. A medium to full bodied wine with soft tannins.

One of the stars of Coonawarra so famed for Cab, this beaut exemplifies the joy of the classic Merlot blend. Smells like evolved claret, leaf tea and earthy, then opens out with spice and hearty raisiny fruits all meat-friendly tannins. A real treat.

Deep, vivid ruby red. Attractive aromas of berries and mature red fruits. Interesting spiced and mentholated tones typical of the Maipo valley. The palate shows the classical force of the variety, with a firm body, pleasing persistence and tasty end.

Since 1977 Rust en Vrede has specialised in the exclusive production of red wine from estate vines, with the focus on Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.

All estate fruit from the original Monte Bello estate, from lots considered not inferior, but more suitable for early consumption rather than the grand vin's 30-yr window approach. So, effectively the 2nd wine of Monte Bello. Minimal intervention as ever, natural and organic. 20 months in air-dried American oak, half new. The first vintage from these vineyards was 1892, and the oldest vines making this wine were planted in 1949. Eric the winemaker, visiting us in Cambridge, tipped us off that this is a smart buy.

A dense deep red with our characteristic sweet/savoury/spicy blend of Cinsault, Carignan and Cabernet Sauvignon. Tastings from the vats in the winter of 2013, revealed elegance and roundness with a spice-dominant palate, liquorice, clove, cinnamon with a warm coulis of red fruits. There are raspberries and blueberries on the palate, this is an elegant vintage, integrated and balanced with fine tannin. No sense of Cabernet Sauvignon here, a more Cinsault dominated vintage with softer red fruits. "Marvellously warm Mediterranean fruits on the nose, would be autumnal but for their vigorous presence, as rich and robust as expected on the palate, almost the essence of Lebanon in the glass with rich spice and cooling breezes, the dry herby fruit flows with energy over the palate before giving way to a finish that confirms the structure, fruit and tannins blending in exuberantly with intriguing hints of much more to come in the next decade." Steven Spurrier January 2020

Cabernet Sauvignon dominant with a nice black fruited nose, this petit chateau tastes anything but from a great vintage. Supple tannins and ripe fruit. Very good value

Good depth of fruit, nicely-judged acidity and velvet-fine tannins. There's wood spice and even cigar-box giving an extra dimension to the cherry-plum fruit.

We've followed this excellent Cru Bourgeois property since 2008 and the 2009 vintage was rated by Decanter as the best Cru Bourgoeis of all. Deep and sensuous palate.

"The nose reflects very ripe red and black fruit, and even some exotic notes, which could take some by surprise. But the palate is more balanced, showing fresh cassis on the finish, which has a long lift, and almost suggests the grapefruit freshness of a white wine! I like the mid-palate sap." Decanter Magazine 92/100

A stonking 96 points from Wine Advocate's Lisa Perotti-Brown, who writes that it "leaps from the glass with gregarious notions of plum preserves, crème de cassis and Black Forest cake with hints of potpourri, star anise, menthol and tapenade. Full, rich, firm and grainy, with fantastic freshness lifting the densely packed palate, it has a long, beautifully fragrant finish." Can be drunk from 2020 to 2045 and beyond.

Ch Haut Batailley is on a roll, with consistently excellent wines made over the last 10 years. The 2014 is one of our favourites, a classic Pauillac yet quite approachable young. 92 points Wine Advocate "a very subtle bouquet, one that bided its time in the glass and then unfolded with scents of blackberry, briary, pencil box and light graphite scents. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, moderate weight, classic and perhaps conservative in style. Yet the harmony is just wonderful and it slips down the throat almost too easily. As such, I feel this is a more approachable Haut-Batailley compared to other vintages, yet it has the body to reward three of four years of bottle age."