2008 Château Ausone, St Emilion, Bordeaux

Possibly the wine of the vintage, the 2008 boasts an inky/blue/purple color as well as a glorious perfume of spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry liqueur, camphor, truffles and crushed rocks. With great fruit on the attack and mid-palate, a medium to full-bodied, multidimensional mouthfeel and a skyscraper-like finish, this prodigious effort over-delivers, even for this phenomenal terroir. Give it 5-8 years of cellaring and drink it over the following 40-50 years.Robert M. Parker, Jr. - 02/05/2011

55% Cabernet Franc (picked 20 Oct), 45% Merlot (picked 17 and 18 Oct). Deliberately not picked for over-ripeness. 27 hl/ha. 16,000 bottles - Polished blackish purple. Wonderfully exotic and ripe on the nose – very nervy and exciting, Really caresses the palate. Lovely sensuality with lots of acidity and tension but fully ripe black fruit flavours. So clean and brilliant! So finely etched. Still very dry on the end but not excessively so. Great punch and energy. Definitely like an electric shock. jancis_robinson_mw MW - JancisRobinson.com - Apr 09

Possibly the “wine of the vintage,” the 2008 boasts an inky/blue/purple color as well as a glorious perfume of spring flowers, blueberry and blackberry liqueur, camphor, truffles and crushed rocks. With great fruit on the attack and mid-palate, a medium to full-bodied, multidimensional mouthfeel and a skyscraper-like finish, this prodigious effort over-delivers, even for this phenomenal terroir. Give it 5-8 years of cellaring and drink it over the following 40-50 years. robert_parker- Wine Advocate- May 2011 The 2008 Ausone tasted much more forward and softer than most Ausones do at this stage, which is remarkable considering the extremely late harvest...Nevertheless, it is a packed and stacked St.-Emilion displaying unreal fruit density, and that liquid mineral component that comes from this steep, limestone vineyard. The wine possesses dense fruit, full-bodied power, remarkably sweet tannins, and more elevated acidity than in such years as 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, and 2006. The acidity seems low because of the wealth and density of the fruit. I can conceive of drinking this Ausone with some degree of complexity in less than ten years... robert_parker- Wine Advocate - Apr 09