Chateau Leoville Barton 2000

ANTONIO GALLONI: "Full medium ruby. Knockout superripe nose combines black cherry, licorice and exotic spices. Compellingly sweet, lush and complete, with harmonious acids giving the wine lovely vinosity and extending the flavors. Finishes with lush, dusty tannins and superb persistence. A great vintage for Leoville-Barton."

FALSTAFF: "Dunkles Rubingranat, violette Reflexe, zarter Wasserrand. Feine Kräuterwürze, reife Pflaumen, ein feiner Hauch von Goudron, kandierte Orangenzesten. Komplex, saftig, bereits gut angereift, finessenreicher Säurebogen, Kirschen und Weichseln im Nachhall, hat Länge, bietet ein vielseitiges Trinkvergnügen."

JAMES SUCKLING: "Decadent aromas of strawberry tart, earth, meat, spices, that gives way to flowers and currants. Full and very soft, with refined tannins with a very long finish. This is just starting to open up right now, a real beauty. Soft and delicious with a great future. This will be better in 5 years, but you can enjoy this now. Pull the cork in 2015."

JANCIS ROBINSON: "Dark crimson. Very solid and savoury on the nose. Essence of St James´s Street?! Lots of mass here and something really very promising even if it is far from its full realisation. Bravo!"

THE WINE CELLAR INSIDER: "On the firm, tannic, stoic side, the wine remains stubbornly youthful. Even at 20, the tannins are strict. Once the tannins subside, there is a wealth of concentrated, ripe, juicy, fresh, crisp Cabernet Sauvignon with real staying power. But this wine demands at least another decade in the cellar before it moves into its prime time drinking window. Those that prefer old-school classic Bordeaux should be all over this wine."

THE WINEADVOCATE: "I found this to be one of the more backward wines of the 2000 vintage and gave it a window of maturity of 2015-2040 when I reviewed it in 2003. In my two recent tastings of it, I changed that window to 2018-2050, which probably says more than the following tasting note could say. This is a behemoth – dense, highly extracted, very tannic, broodingly backward, with a dense purple color and very little evolution since it was bottled 8 years ago. Wonderfully sweet cedar and fruitcake notes are intermixed with hints of creme de cassis, licorice, and earthy forest floor. It is full-bodied and tannic, with everything in place, but like so many wines that come from Leoville Barton, it makes a mockery of many modern-day consumers wanting a wine for immediate gratification. Those who bought it should continue to exercise patience and be proud to own a wonderful classic with five decades of longevity ahead of it."

WEINWISSER: "Dunkles, sattes, dichtes Bordeauxrot, fast schwarze Reflexe. Traumhaftes, süsses Edelholzbouquet, viel schwarze Kirschen, Cassis, roter Holunder, vielschichtig, Minzetöne, Zedern- und zarter Schokoduft. Saftiger, reicher Gaumen, delikater, reifer Cabernet-Geschmack, noch feiner als bei der Primeurprobe, Frucht, Frucht und nochmals Frucht, Palisandernoten im druckvollen Finish."

WINE ENTHUSIAST: "Right from the early days of tasting in spring 2001, this was going to be one of the stars of the vintage. And a star it remains. There is big, ripe fruit, with solid, ageworthy tannins. It may not be as powerful as some of the blockbusters of the vintage, but it is certainly more opulent, less classical than Léoville-Barton can sometimes be."

WINESPECTATOR: "Hello. Take textbook St.-Julien warmed fig, blueberry compote and blackberry reduction notes along with ample graphite, bramble and tobacco flavors, then dial it up a notch. This has terrific energy to offset the admirable depth and length, and hasn´t even started a second phase yet. One of the stars of the vintage.--Blind 2000 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2015). Best from 2018 through 2033. 20,000 cases made."