2000 Château Pavie

100 POINTS

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

I tasted this wine twice during the 2000 horizontals, then I actually popped the cork and drank a half-bottle of it. This wine remains, for me, one of the compelling success stories for proprietor Gerard Perse. An extraordinary effort made from a blend of 60% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc, and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon from the limestone soils that dominate this very distinctive terroir, the 2000 Pavie has moved out of the closed, dormant, broodingly backward stage into an adolescent period where one can see its extraordinary vibrancy, and great complexity as well as potential. It boasts an unctuous display of rich, cedar box-infused cassis fruit and liquid minerality. The tannins have sweetened, yet the wine has thirty years of longevity and potential evolution. A beautiful wine of great mass as well as elegance, it is good to see the extraordinary efforts that Gerard Perse and his team have made confirmed in this prodigious wine. A legend now ... a legend for the future. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2060.

97 POINTS

Wine Spectator

Beautiful and on point now, with a cascade of gently steeped blackberry, boysenberry and raspberry fruit flavors that are showing some secondary notes, all followed by singed alder, dried anise, tobacco and black tea accents. Features a mineral lining on the finish, along with a long sanguine echo. Presents a mature edge, but this is racy and fresh, with hints of menthol and bay leaf.--Non-blind Pavie vertical (March 2017). Drink now through 2035. 7,500 cases made.

96 POINTS

James Suckling - Wine Spectator

Voluputuous red. Glorious aromas of very ripe fruit, with layers of spices and chocolate. Full-bodied, with big yet very silky tannins and a long, long finish. Generous and seductive red. Lasts minutes on the palate. Best ever from here. Best after 2010. 7,500 cases made.

95 POINTS

Stephen Tanzer - Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar

Good full medium ruby. Knockout nose of blackberry, espresso, licorice, minerals and burnished oak; offers terrific verve and clarity for a wine so ripe and rich. Then extremely youthful on the palate, with tightly wound flavors and great inner-mouth energy. Brilliant black fruit and mineral flavors offer compelling perfume. This is still remarkably primary despite its long elevage . Finishes with great tactile, chewy persistence. An outstanding vintage for this property.

95 POINTS

James Suckling

Very ripe and powerful with spice, meat and walnut character. Full-bodied, deep and layered. Flamboyant and decadent. Long and flavorful finish. Drink now or hold.

94 POINTS

Wine Spectator

This is a beauty, with a really pure and still-youthful beam of plum, boysenberry and raspberry compote flavors streaming through, gilded with fruitcake and a hint of sweet cocoa, but ultimately carried by a long graphite spine. Rather open through the finish despite the youthful persona, and hard to resist now.--Blind 2000 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2015). Drink now through 2023. 4,333 cases made.

93 POINTS

Roger Voss - Wine Enthusiast

Under the regime of Gérard Perse, Pavie seems to have become more opulent, more extracted, and, dare I say it, more simplistic. The richness of the 2000 vintage lends itself to this technique. While it is a wonderful, immediately appealing wine, with its intense dark fruits, it seem to lack the complexity of other wines of similar status.