Chateau Leoville Barton 2008

"A dense, beautifully structured wine. It shows intense, ripe fruit with balanced acidity. It’s the fine tannins that give it such class, surrounding the fruit, promising long aging. This is a classic for Léoville-Barton. Cellar Selection."

96 Points

Wine Enthusiast

"Bright ruby. Sexy, ripe nose combines cassis, Cuban cigar tobacco, licorice and minerals. Sweet, tactile and intense, with concentrated, sharply delineated flavors of dark fruits and minerals. Densely packed, ripe and deep. Offers a lovely combination of silky texture, firm structure and the aromatic lift and nuance of the vintage's best examples. Should age gracefully for at least 15 years."

93 Points

International Wine Cellar

"What a nose! Chocolate, berry, meat and spice aromas. Full body, with soft and velvety tannins and a long, long finish. This is solid and rich for the vintage. A beauty."

93 Points

James Suckling

"Typically extracted and powerful (which is atypical in a vintage such as 2008), this offering may lack charm, but it is “locked and loaded” with plenty of background oak, huge black cherry and black currant fruit, medium to full body and a boatload of tannin. Forget it for 8-10 years and drink it over the following three decades."

92 Points

The Wine Advocate

"Alluring, with warm fig sauce, plum and currant paste notes liberally laced with espresso bean and dark roasted vanilla bean notes. Fleshy but focused, with the roasted edge adding definition and length."

91 Points

Wine Spectator

"Very much like its close cousin from Langoa Barton, this a big, beefy, well-extracted wine that comes with no small measure of chalky astringency, but it is deeper in fruit with strong themes of sweet, well-ripened blackcurrants surviving the tannins that presently hold sway. It is not and will not be for some time one that will invite drinking, but it has the look of a classic west-side claret that should shine some ten to twelve years hence. It is a better choice than Langoa Barton.Reviewed: March 2011"

91 Points

Connoisseurs' Guide