Product Overview
99 Points - Wine Advocate
"The 2009 Dominus is a blend of 86% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Cabernet Franc and 4% Petit Verdot. Deep garnet colored, it rolls easily, sensuously out of the glass with evolving fruit notes of baked blackcurrants, plum preserves, mulberries and fruitcake plus underlying suggestions of charcuterie, camphor, chocolate-covered cherries and candied violets with just a touch of cast iron pan. Medium to full-bodied, the palate is an exercise in balance, with loads of emerging black fruit and earthy layers and a solid line of finely grained tannins, finishing very long with a perfumed lift." -LPB, 1/9/20
94 Points - Wine Spectator
"Offers plum and blackberry compote notes that give this both a corpulent and opaque feel up front, before the vineyard’s telltale cast iron note as well as a roasted apple wood accent harness this on the back end. Sports a serious tug of earth and a nice licorice snap accent throughout. Very tight structurally, with a still-primal side to the fruit, this is not quite unfurled. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot.—Non-blind Dominus retrospective (August 2022). Best from 2025 through 2035. 6,000 cases made." -JM, 2022
94 Points - Vinous
"Bright, full ruby-red. Highly complex, thoroughly ripe scents of black raspberry, cassis, dark plum, tar, tobacco, mocha and minerals, lifted by a violet topnote. Wonderfully suave and fine-grained but still quite youthful, spreading out to coat the palate without leaving any undue impression of weight. Shows a distinct black cherry medicinal reserve. This very smooth wine finishes with a broad dusting of ripe tannins and steadily building length. Approachable now owing to its successfully integrated acidity and tannins, but I'd rather give this beauty a bit more time in the cellar." -ST, Mar/2019
90 Points - Wine Enthusiast
"While this is not the best Dominus vintage, it does show elegantly smooth tannins, dryness and earthiness that accompanies the blackberry and cassis fruit. It's curiously soft, which might limit its ageability. Shows an uncanny similarity to the 2000." -10/1/12