Jamessuckling.com | JS 99
Published: Feb 7, 2022

This is so aromatic with blackcurrants, black berries and raspberries. Pure fruit, together with coffee and nutmeg. Really fresh and clean with bright spices. Full-bodied, yet reserved and tight with fantastic structure. So long. This is a great Cos for the cellar. A real benchmark for the true character. Needs at least five or six years to open and come around. Try after 2029.

The Wine Advocate | RP 97+
Published: Apr 7, 2022
Drink: 2027-2055

The 2019 Cos d'Estournel has turned out brilliantly, exhibiting aromas of minty cassis, sweet wild berries and wild plums mingled with hints of spices, loamy soil and potpourri. Full-bodied, broad and enveloping, it's polished and seamless, its ample chassis of fine, velvety tannin entirely concealed in its deep core of succulent, crunchy fruit. Beautifully integrated at this early stage, the last decade has witnessed a number of changes at this address, including a trend toward less aggressively late picking, cooler fermentations and élevage with fewer rackings and more moderate percentages of less heavily toasted new oak: in 2019, the results speak for themselves.

Cos d'Estournel may neighbor Lafite-Rothschild, but its vineyards are very different, rising from the banks of the Jalle de Breuil—the small stream that divides Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe—to a height of fully 26 meters above sea level. Cos's clay-gravel vineyards occupy the plateau on top, as well as straddling the slopes, scrolling round the hillside from the east-facing holdings overlooking Lafite to fully south-facing holdings that look out over the Gironde. It's surely this variety of expositions—as well as an average vine age of 55 years—that lend the wine its completeness and plenitude. Soil studies, undertaken in 2003, inform parcel-by-parcel farming and winemaking, as well as replanting, where Cos's important percentage of Merlot is gradually tending to diminish. The last two decades have witnessed considerable evolution: herbicides were banished and experimentation with cover crops began in 2002; a new gravity-flow winery was built in 2008; and winemaking and picking dates have evolved. In the past, the wines sometimes flirted with extremes; but in pushing the boundaries, sometimes one exceeds them. Today, harvest is a touch earlier than was the case a decade ago; fermentation temperatures are cooler and the wines racked less frequently; and percentages of new oak are both much more modest, in 2019 amounting to only 55% (mainly from Taransaud, Fraçois Frères and Berthomieu) and, above all, much less heavily toasted. The result? Wines of greater textural refinement and more vibrant fruit flavors, with as much intensity of flavor and persistence as ever. I suspect, what's more, that today's more reductive élevage will see them age very well indeed. Proprietor Michel Reybier is surely proud that two decades of unremitting investment in quality are today consistently delivering some of the Médoc's very finest wines.

Jancisrobinson.com | JR 17+
Published: Feb 1, 2023
Drink: 2028-2049

Tasted blind. Second bottle – more evolution on the nose. Loose and fresh. Salinity came out.

Estournel.com

FASCINATING, OPULENT, VOLUPTUOUS
The call of faraway lands.
As mysterious and intriguing as a lone adventurer returning from a solitary sail, Cos d’Estournel is slow to reveal itself. Little by little, it evokes stories of distant places, market stalls brimming with unfamiliar fruits, spices and wares, village festivities warmed by the joy of revelers and the setting sun, and sumptuous visions of ladies and their voluptuous curves. A myriad of scents, colors and tastes appeals to the senses. The Grand Vin of Cos d’Estournel is both demure and deliberately sensuous, a fascinating and elegant nectar.

CABERNET SAUVIGNON : 65% 
MERLOT : 35%

Silky, delicate and immensely profound, the 2019 vintage embodies the quintessence of Cos d'Estournel.
Multi-faceted, it delivers aromas of cinnamon and jasmine alongside fine mineral notes and a touch of spice that perfectly structures the wine through its finish.
A dazzling expression of the estate?s terroir, exceptional and full of grace, Cos d?Estournel 2019 is an alluring vintage with universal appeal that promises many wonderful years of cellaring.