Chateau d'Armailhac 2016

Professional Ratings

• 95 James Suckling
  This is a really driven d’Armailhac showing blackcurrants and fruit tea with hints of bark on the nose and palate. Full-bodied, very firm and structured with a long and powerful finish. Direct and linear. Try after 2023.
• 94 Jeb Dunnuck
  A thrilling bottle of wine that readers should snatch up is the 2016 Château d’Armailhac. This deeply colored, medium to full-bodied, powerful Armailhac gives up a lovely perfume of blackberry and plums fruits, violets, graphite, cedar pencil, and earthy, herbal nuances. Classic, ripe, layered, and just a beautiful Pauillac any way you look at it, it has plenty of upfront sex appeal but is going to keep for 20-25 years as well. Bravo! The 2016 is a blend of 62% Cabernet Sauvignon, 28% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot.
• 93 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
  Deep garnet-purple colored, the 2016 D'Armailhac opens with gregarious crème de cassis, blackberry pie and mulberries scents with hints of chocolate box, roses and charcoal with a waft of dried sage. Medium-bodied, the palate has a rock-solid frame of firm, grainy tannins and wonderful freshness, finishing long and earthy.
• 93 Wine Spectator
  This juicy red sports dark plum, fig and boysenberry fruit backed by an equally strong wave of bramble and sweet tobacco notes. The cast-iron spine pins down the finish, so give this a little time to integrate fully. Best from 2023 through 2038.
• 93 Decanter
  There's fairly high acidity on the attack here, and yet it's well balanced by a body that's richer and deeper than in many years of Armailhac. You can definitely feel the texture and the powerful depth of brambly fruit, and there are also some of the signature lilting floral notes, given extra charge through graphite, liquorice, cassis, and that pulsating acidity. Great quality. 2% Petit Verdot completes the blend.
• 91 Connoisseurs' Guide

  That Pauillac was especially blessed in the 2016 vintage is affirmed once again here, and, while not always an estate that achieves striking success, Château D’Armailhac shines in this incarnation. It is ripe, rich and concentrated with continuous, very confident, ever-so-slightly juicy young fruit reaching well into its very long-lasting finish, and, if is it appropriately tannic for a Cabernet-based wine of its age, its high percentage of Merlot is manifest in its teasing early suppleness and its welcome step-back from austere astringency

• 90 Wine Enthusiast
  This is a ripe wine, full of black fruits with attractive tannins. It has depth but the wine is more about fruitiness and relatively quick development. Drink this already delicious, lightly spicy wine from 2022.