Château Cos d'Estournel 2010

Can you grade style? You can—and you can’t. So let’s stick to craftsmanship: Cos 2010 is quite simply the most perfect, most extravagant, most opulent, most powerful, most exotic of all Classé wines—that’s what the score stands for, and that’s why you can shell out 300 euros. Whether this hot‑blooded wine leaves us cold is beside the point. Or is it?

A great contrast to the '09, this feels even denser, with dark plum, black currant and fig sauce flavors that pump along. The spine is all graphite and chalk, giving this a riveting feel through the finish. The cut is terrific, no easy feat considering how dense the fruit is. A stunning wine. -- Non-blind Cos-d'Estournel vertical (December 2015). Best from 2025 through 2045. 16,000 cases made.

Darkly fragranced, with chocolate, blackcurrants and violets, ripe fruit and soft woody touches. Tense and compact, tannins with a lovely texture. Nice weight and balance. Silky and streamlined, polished and poised. Long, clean finish with a salty liquorice, tobacco mineral touch. Great structure, weight and definition.

There’s clarity and beauty to this wine as always, with pure dark berry, stone and spice notes. Some clove too. Full-bodied, with firm yet silky tannins and a long finish. A pure, precise wine with so much class. Try in 2020.

Ripe, candied black fruit and smooth, rounded texture. Very modern and sleek, though it finishes with a fine, grainy texture. Potent, rich and opulent – easy to enjoy. Seems quite warm on the finish, mind. (RH)

Still young, but even at this early stage, it is impossible not to be wowed by this wine. The layers of depth, intensity, richness, power, and finesse are almost off the charts. The black fruits are perfectly ripe, opulent, flamboyant, and fresh, as well as balanced, pure, and refined. This is a great vintage for Cos that will start showing its best with a few more years of age. Drink from 2028-2060.

Dark ruby garnet, purple reflections, subtle edge brightening, intense black berry fruit, attractive ripe plums in the background, a hint of nougat and cocoa, delicate caramel, subtle hints of dried fruit. Very powerful, sweet and full-bodied, dark nougat, well integrated, vivid tannins, pleasant sweetness. Fresh structure, orange aftertaste, very good future ageing potential, chocolaty finish, fine extracted sweetness on the aftertaste.

The 2010 Château Cos D'Estournel is based on 78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc, and the rest Petit Verdot, drawn from just 55% of the total production and aged in 80% new French oak. Hitting 14.5% natural alcohol, this still dense purple-hued beauty offers extraordinary notes of blackcurrants, unsmoked tobacco, graphite, freshly sharpened pencils, and chocolate. Full-bodied, massively concentrated, and flawlessly balanced on the palate, it has building tannins, a skyscraper-like mouthfeel that opens up with time in the glass, and a great, great finish. Made in a much more focused, precise, and structured style compared to the more flamboyant 2009, it needs another 7–8 years of bottle age and will be a 50, 60, if not 75+ year wine.

78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. 38 hl/ha. 55% Grand Vin. Extremely dark purple with lilac and violet highlights. Plenty of black cherries, dark noble woods, Sichuan pepper and fine tar nuances. Dense, fleshy palate, well-supported ripe acidity, noble astringency, mulberries and blackcurrant. A return to classicism with an extremely long-lived, Burgundy-style tasting Cos.

78% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 2% Cabernet Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. 38 hl/ha. 55% Grand Vin. Extremely dark purple with lilac and violet highlights. Plenty of black cherries, noble dark woods, Sichuan pepper and fine tar nuances that signal the wine’s depth. Dense, fleshy palate, generous extract, well‑supported ripe acidity, with a noble yet demanding astringency which, as with Pagodes, shows at its core aromas reminiscent of a legendary Henry Jayer Burgundy, mulberries and cassis. A return to classicism with a Cos that may soon be legendary, extremely long‑lived, and, as mentioned, Burgundy‑like in taste. (19/20). 20: Incredibly youthful color, violet‑black, impenetrable at the center. Direct, peppery bouquet with tremendous drive on the nose, almost heady. Cleanly focused with killer precision. On the palate it continues likewise: firm tannins, a rich body and a demanding astringency. After 10 years in bottle, this patient Cos feels like a just‑bottled barrel sample. The wine is so demanding that you feel as if your palate has just been sand‑blasted. Will I still experience it as a possibly mature wine? Sadly, I scarcely think so. Best from 2035? (19/20)

Stands head and shoulders above the 2009 at this point: here you get the creaminess and power of a great vintage, with tannins verging on monster territory, and yet there is real delicacy and hidden complexity. Gorgeous quality, brilliant stuff, exotic, incense, cinnamon; 100% new oak.

Elegant attack, long, racy, refined, superb aromas of mocha and cassis, very fine tannins, splendid finish.

Logo on the cork: JL (Lafitte Liège) Dark, intense, beautiful purple color. Moderately aromatic nose with pure, fresh fruit. Soft on the attack, very flavorful mid-palate, particularly present, slightly austere, with hazelnut-like oak; the wine finishes long, complex, and flavorful, with energy and a fine tannic frame.

This is a complex and rich wine dominated by superripe fruit. It is a wine of extremes, of fruit, of dark tannins allied to some bitterness from the black chocolate extract. Ripe plums and sweet black fruits are given a lift at the end with bright acidity.