Bordeaux Wine between $75 and $100

Now 10 years old, the 2002 Château Canon has reached an exquisite maturity. Silky smooth and vibrant in the mouth, the graceful fruit quite literally glides over the palate, displaying notes of plums, raspberries berries, crème de cassis, with notes of freshplowed new earth and vanilla rising towards the finish. Drinking beautifully now, this wine has reached the plateau of maturity, where it will easily hold for an additional 7 to 10 years.
--Ben Giliberti, CW (June 2012)

The perfect bookend to the fully mature 2002 Château Canon, the 2008 is a great wine in the making. Although 3 to 4 years away from full maturity, its impeccable balance makes it highly approachable now. This is a wine of enormous freshness, vibrancy, and class, a symphony composed in notes of raspberry, strawberries, cassis, and gentle notes of new oak. An exceptional value in a great wine.
--Ben Giliberti, CW (June 2012)

Not surprisingly, this wine is closed, masculine, but super-rich, with a denser, more complete and full-bodied style than its sibling, Langoa Barton. Some toasty vanillin is apparent in the black currant aromas intermixed with tobacco leaf, cedar, and spice box. The wine is full-bodied and has a boatload of tannin, not unusual for this estate, as well as an impressively pure, long finish. Everything is here, but this wine, made with uncompromising vision, is meant to be cellared for an exceptionally long period of time. Anticipated maturity: 2020-2035. 91+

Among the great Rauzan Seglas of the past 30 years, the 2006 Château Rauzan Segla is a worthy challenger to the estate’s brilliant 2005. However, while the 2005 has barely begun to shed its massive tannins, the ultrarefined 2006 is approaching a graceful maturity. A wine of enormous depth and complexity, with the perfumed, ethereal bouquet that only the greatest châteaux of Margaux are capable of producing, the 2006 Rauzan Segla is a joy to drink now, but promises an additional 10 to 12 years of marvelous evolution.
--Ben Giliberti, CW (June 2012)