designation: Dead Horse Ciel du Cheval Vineyard Red Wine

description: A blend of 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Cab Franc, 17% Merlot and 7% Petit Verdot, the seventh edition of Mark Ryan's iconic Dead Horse is, as expected, a tannic, liquorous, sweet and ripe wine, loaded with flavors of black cherry, plenty of barrel toast and chocolaty tannins.

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description: Acidity marks this ripe, delicious wine, giving it a tartness that works to balance the extraordinarily ripe flavors. Cherries, black raspberries, mulberries and pomegranates all mingle together, with spice and cedar complications, and the finish is totally dry and somewhat tannic. Great now, and should hold for a good six years.

designation: San Leonardo

description: This was a hot vintage, but this beautifully elegant blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot boasts enormous purity of fruit and deep layers of penetration and intensity. It is a more fruit-forward version of the wine, but it does offer drying minerals and bright fruit flavors with tight tannins to keep it balanced.

designation: Calderara Sottana

description: Pretty, floral and sweet aromas of blue flower and forest floor are doled out in a very controlled and feminine manner. The wine is elegant and refined and shares many of the same characteristics that you would find in a top-rated Pinot Noir.

designation: Clift Vineyard

description: This is a food-friendly Cab. It's made in an elegant style, with fine acidity and firm tannins that frame black and red currant, plum, mocha and cedar flavors. Lovely now, but so balanced, it should develop for ten years.

designation: Duca Enrico

description: Duca Enrico is one of Sicily's most celebrated expressions of Nero d'Avola with excellent complexity and compelling notes of licorice, black fruit and spice. It tastes clean and polished and ends on a cooling note of fresh acidity.

designation: Gabarinza

description: A single-vineyard wine from a top site in Gols. It is darkly solid, a powerful wine that exudes dark figs, firm tannins and big, rich fruit. There is an impressive muscularity about this wine, the acidity serving to freshen it without distracting from the weight. Age for 2C3 years.

designation: La Rousse Vineyard

description: Easily worth the price for its luxurious texture, fine structure and intricate layers of flavor. Dry and softly tannic, the wine shows complex notes of blackberries, cherries, pomegranates, chocolate, coffee, leather, black pepper and anise. Now through 2010.

designation: Clos du Marquis

description: A beautifully perfumed, dark-colored wine, bursting with black plums and violet perfumes. It is, on the surface, delicious, but taste beneath that and it becomes complex and dark, with immense but velvet tannins, suggesting considerable potential.

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description: This wine continues the improvements at this classed growth chateau at the far southern end of the Margaux appellation. It is firmly structured, but the fruit is rich, showing juiciness from ripe, black fruits. The concentration and intensity offer excellent aging potential.

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description: A powerhouse of rich Merlot, big, ripe, with black plums, sweet figs and only light acidity. A wine for lovers of big Merlots, this rolls generously around the mouth. Because of this immediate richness, it seems likely to age quickly.

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description: This is a dark wine, perhaps more elegant than powerful. The currant fruit flavors drive through with prominent acidity, trailing tight tannins and smoky wood. More weight would have been welcome.

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description: This is a great success. Youthful tannins exude power and vitality, combining with great fruit concentration, the elements coming together with sweet chocolate and cocoa as added richness. A tasty wine that is developing well.

designation: Bue Apis

description: Dark and impenetrable with bold oak nuances, sweet vanilla extract and layers of Indian spice, this is a rich and dense wine that should be consumed with succulent cuts of meat. The tannins are tight and firm and this wine will age for many years to come.

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description: An aromatic, seductive wine, scented with smoke and chocolate, cedar and strawberry. Thick and chewy, with ripe raspberry fruit and a liquorous, barrel-inflected finish. This is a big wine for those who like sheer power, in both fruit and tannins.

designation: Flax Vineyard

description: Fairly tannic and very dry, with ripe, jammy flavors of cherries and raspberries that taste like they were baked into a pie sprinkled with cocoa and cinnamon, and then drizzled with anisette liqueur. Should develop additional bottle complexity over the next six years.

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description: At this early stage in its development, this wine shows more structure than richness. The tannins are fully developed, dark and dense. The complexity is there, but the fruit and the elegance are still to come and that suggests good aging potential.

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description: A big, rich chocolaty wine with delicious spice and ripe tannins. The fruit is sumptuously rich, blackberry juice flavors balancing the power and concentration of the texture. In all this richness, there is just enough freshness to lift the finish.

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description: Very elegant, very classy, this wine shows, discreetly, its sweet juicy fruit, great ripe black currant flavor and fine tannins. Nothing is overstated; this is for lovers of stylish wines.

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description: A lively, spicy wine that shows ginger and nutmeg character, followed by ripe white pears. Beneath this vivid character, the texture is smooth, honeyed, deliciously ripe.