Vinous - Score: 94 (2019 December)

Shimmering ruby-red. A highly expressive bouquet evokes candied red and dark berries, cola, smoky minerals and licorice, and a sexy floral note builds as the wine opens up. Sappy, penetrating and pure, offering palate-staining black raspberry, cherry pie, blood orange and lavender pastille flavors that put on weight and turn spicier with air. Delivers a compelling blend of richness and delicacy and finishes spicy, focused and very long, leaving floral and red fruit preserve notes behind. Once again, this bottling is, perhaps, the top "basic" Châteauneuf of the year.