Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: Brilliantly constructed on bursting aromas and freshness. A Conseillante with an amazingly dynamic core, svelte and long, with pure and intense fruit. 18.5

John Gilman: Despite the 2010 La Conseillante tipping the scales at 14.5% ABV, it seems decidedly cooler and more poised than its 2009 counterpart did a year ago. The lovely bouquet is deep and pure and shows no signs of overripeness in its melange of black raspberries, black cherries, chocolate, gravelly soil tones, smoke, and a very judicious base of new oak. On the palate, the wine is deep, full-bodied, suave, and tangy, with lovely focus and mid-palate depth, moderate ripe tannins, and excellent length and grip on the classy finish. One senses that the folks at La Conseillante were very careful not to overextract the wine, and the result is one of the best “hot vintage” Conseillantes that I can ever recall. A superb wine. 2020–60. 18

Michael Schuster: Closed, but underlying blackberry fruit to smell; full-bodied, concentrated wine, with a firm tannin and fresh acidity, the latter tightening the tannins and making the wine particularly linear and fresh in style. Rich, ripe, fleshy, close-knit, and refined flavor, with lovely fruit-and-aroma persistence, though you do notice the alcoholic warmth a bit on the finish. A large-scale Conseillante (the most alcoholic ever), with its usual elegance, if not the yielding fleshiness of the most attractive (for me) years. I prefer the sweet, supple grace and richness of the ’09 for now. 2022–40. 17.5/18