Château Pétrus - Pomerol 2015 (750ml)
Decanter: 100 Points
There is so much going on with Petrus in 2015 that you should just pull up a chair and relax, don't expect to be going anywhere soon. Aromatic persistency keeps reaching in, pulling you further alongside. There is a soft quality to the tannins that allows the black fruit to be both juicy and sweet. High alcohol is balanced by freshness - a pH of 3.5 is relatively rare on these sticky clay soils - unleashing waves of flavour, including bergamot, smoky tea, black olives and rich cherry.
Wine Enthusiast: 100 Points
This is like drinking liquid black currants and blackberries. The wine has great intensity and richness from the superbly generous Merlot. The wood aging shows as a hint in the background, with the bold black fruit and ample acidity dominating.
James Suckling: 100 Points
The aromas to this are a reference for Pomerol with truffles, black olives, black licorice and dark fruit. Even brown sugar. Full-bodied, layered and multi-dimensional. Chocolate underlines the character above. The perfect tannin texture, length and balance make you think you're dreaming. All about harmony and beauty.
Jeb Dunnuck: 99 Points
The 2015 Chateau Petrus is undoubtedly one of the gems in the vintage and will probably merit a perfect score in another decade. Even so, it has the sexy, exotic nature of the vintage front and center and offers a huge perfume of black currants, kirsch liqueur, Asian spices, and incense. As always, this beauty is 100% Merlot that was brought up in 50% new wood in 2015. A wine that opens up beautifully with time in the glass, it has beautiful mid-palate depth, sweet, sweet tannins, and voluptuous yet weightless texture that needs to be tasted to be believed.
Vinous: 98 Points
The 2015 Petrus has a fresh, detailed yet quite understated bouquet of black fruit, pencil box, smoke and light tarry aromas - very succinct and classy. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, and linear and quite strict in style, which might explain why I knocked off a point compared to my note in January 2018. But it gently builds in intensity to a grippy, graphite-infused finish with that subtle Japanese seaweed tincture I observed previously. Classic in style, this will benefit from several years in bottle. Excellent.
Wine Advocate: 98 Points
The 2015 Petrus was bottled in July 2017 according to Olivier Berrouet. Deep in color, it has a very fragrant bouquet that takes time to open, eventually offering scents of blackberry, briary, cold stone and iris with hint of hoisin and black pepper, all beautifully defined and very succinct. The palate is supremely well balanced with a saline, quite spicy entry with edgy tannin. There is enormous depth here and it manifests an enigmatic marine influence with time, touches of Japanese nori and sea salt. It fans out wonderfully on the finish although it is not a powerful, burly Petrus, rather one that is sophisticated and refined.
Wine Spectator: 96 Points
Reserved right now, but there is a well of blackberry, boysenberry and plum coulis flavors in reserve here, infused with black tea, anise and singed spice elements. Remarkably silky, elegant and extremely long, this unfurls ever so slowly in the glass, beguiling with texture and fruit purity.
