96 pts - Wine Advocate
The most profound Lascombes produced under the new ownership, the 2005 is a 25,000-case blend of 52% Cabernet Sauvignon, 45% Merlot, and 3% Petit Verdot. It boasts an inky/blue/purple color in addition to an extraordinary perfume of charcoal, barbecue smoke, grilled meats, and sweet blackberries, cherries, and violets. With tremendous intensity, purity, freshness, definition, palate presence, and a moderately tannic finish (the tannin is sweet and well-integrated), this blockbuster is rich and concentrated yet maintains its Margaux typicity. Anticipated maturity: 2010-2030 RP
92 pts - Wine Spectator
89 pts - Vinous
(52% cabernet sauvignon, 45% merlot and 3% petit verdot) Good bright ruby. Blueberry and licorice on the nose, lifted by spicy oak. Chewy, lush and dense, but with a sappy quality giving shape to the fruit. Very tactile, solid wine with a saline quality suggesting energetic extraction. But this offers impressive mouth coverage and finishes broad and long, with nicely restrained sweetness. Wait until 211.- Stephen Tanzer (5/26)