You should forget the out-dated image of furry Cahors wines scratching the palate ... Modern Cahors is a true charmer. Malbec gives us wonderful wines on this complex terroir. In good hands it makes full and harmonious, but above all tasty wines!

Château du Cèdre 2011
Beautiful fragrance of red and black fruits, as well as spicy notes. Well-integrated tannins and completely controlled power. Velvety texture, harmonious.

Battle Château Pineraie vs. Château du Cèdre
Two wines from Cahors ready to be tasted, but who can easily mature for another 10 years. Château Pineraie is an ancient winery that shows all its skills in this top cuvée presented here. Seductive and very complete. The Château du Cèdre 2011, with its soft texture and harmony, nevertheless seems to be superior. And this is just the basic wine of the winery! Both wines can easily compete with their (almost) neighbours from Saint-Émilion.

Beef Magazine France January 2018

Le Cèdre Malbec Vintage 2011

This is as close as Malbec gets to a Port-style wine. It is rich,
lightly nutty and well balanced between sweet black fruits and
acidity, with firmer tannins that promise aging. Drink at the end of
a meal, like a vintage Port.

Wine Enthusiast November 2014

You may know the varietal as Argentina’s best export, but its roots are French. Get to know the grape’s more structured, transatlantic cousins with some of our favorite French Malbecs available in the U.S. [...]

Argentinian producers have done a terrific job of marketing Malbec as a concept, with the word itself in big type on bottles—but in much of Europe, the grapes aren’t necessarily listed on wine labels, or they go by names Americans have never heard of. So it takes a little more investigation and effort to understand Malbec’s French cousins. [...]

Luckily, Malbecs from France’s Cahors region, where it’s the only game in town, are much easier to track down. Cahors is just east and slightly south of Bordeaux—where, not incidentally, Malbec was the primary grape before 1860—and it’s known for producing intense, tannic and inky-black Malbecs. It’s one of France’s most underappreciated areas, without a doubt. [...]

It took the wine list at Cherche Midi, Keith McNally’s new bistro on New York’s Lower East Side, to acquaint me with my favorite Cahors of all, Chateau Du Cedre’s Le Cedre 2011 ($55). Everything this producer makes is worth seeking out, including Chateau du Cedre Cahors 2011 ($24), with its hearty black plum taste.
But the pitch black Le Cedre, the chateau’s go-for-broke premium product, boasts a host of contradictions, and as in all great wines, they are all elegantly synthesized. It’s rich, but not heavy. It’s full of sweet black fruit flavors—cherry, blackberry—but it has a long, precise finish that does not weigh you down. A note of tar keeps things interesting. And it paired fantastically well with the prime rib at Cherche Midi. These are red-meat wines through and through.
If you’ve been living on a diet of “Solid Red Wine,” Le Cedre is a first-class ticket to the next level of Malbec.

Extract from What to Drink Now: Getting to Know French Malbecs
By Ted Loos on March 26, 2015

…this is going to be a classic. Its tannins are already balanced to the immense juicy fruits and dark wood flavors that bring out spiciness. It’s powerful while not over the top, showing elegance at the same time as an opulent texture. Give this gorgeous wine until 2018.

Wine Enthusiast Magazine Novembre 2014

Sauvignon, Viognier, Muscat... a proud blend! Grape varieties, skin maceration and barrel fermentation (for 70% of the cuvée) are equally responsible for the deep golden colour and intense bouquet of this wine: peach, pear, apricot, butter and a little vanilla, white flowers ...

Dense, rich and fat on the palate with lively acidity and dominating fruit aromas. Appreciable smoky and woody flavours reemerge at at the bottom of the glass, whereas a slight tannic grip enhances and extends the final flavors. A precious wine, powerful and elegant, that stands very well on its own, but loves to accompany your dinner.

This 100% Malbec, perfectly aware of its power of seduction, plays its best cards with a certain kind of nonchalance: An explosive bouquet, a dense and creamy mouth feel, a (very) long final, fresh minerality.

Exuberant fragrances of raspberry and violets, but also marzipan and toasted hazelnuts rapidly capture the entire attention of our olfactory cells, while our taste buds turn somersaults between the velvety mouth feel and the impressive tannin structure. A wine that unleashes passion, expects affection and deserves some subtle cooking (grilled zander with bacon and capers in its youth, slowly cooked venison with sour cherry after a couple of years of cellaring).

Pierre Cros settled on 25 ha of vineyards and as much olives, almond trees and truffle oaks. He is a great “winzer-artist”, a real benchmark in the Minervois, if you look look up how often we wrote about him and his wines in this guide during the last 10 years. He considers himself as a “peasant” and tells usthat he learned to respect his clients from his father and grand-father,who both of them had been bakers in Badens. Besides classic grape varieties of the AOC, Pierre Cros keeps ancient, almost forgotten and even “non-beloved” (mal aimé) grape varieties (as for example the Aramon) and introduced new varieties from abroad.

The mythic cuvee of the winery (Les Aspres) stands atop the podium once again. Similar to previous vintages, the 2011 unifies intense, warm fragrances of ripe fruit, spices, cedar wood and eucalyptus. Toasty aromas and cocoa join the full-bodied, smooth and concentrated taste on the palate, underlined by elegant but tight tannins and delicate spices that lead the wine to an intense final. A true apotheosis!

Three stars also for the Vielles Vignes 2012: A centennial Carignan that spend a short time in oak barrels. Sweet spices, concentrated fruit, fine and supple.

Santa Duc Gigondas “Aux Lieux-Dits” 2011

A classic Gigondas with its rich, spice-laced aromas and flavors and medium to full-bodied, structured palate feel, the 2011 Gigondas Aux Lieux-Dits is a foudre aged blend of 75% Grenache, 15% Syrah and the rest Mourvedre and Cinsault. Mouth filling, with ripe tannin and a solid length on the finish, drink bottles over the coming 7-8 years.
Jeb Dunnuck December 2013, The Wine Advocate

Santa Duc Gigondas “Prestige des Hautes Garrigues” 2011

[...] Intense, deeply pitched dark fruit liqueur aromas are lifted by notes of fresh flowers and white pepper. Supple and expansive in the mouth, offering sweet boysenberry and cassis flavors that pick up smoke and mocha nuances with air. Velvety tannins frame the impressively persistent, palate-staining finish, which features notes of blueberry preserves and licorice. In a decidedly rich, broad-shouldered, very ripe style, especially for the vintage.
Josh Raynolds Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar

Santa Duc “Prestige des Hautes Garrigues” 2011

The 2011 Gigondas Prestige des Hautes Garrigues is also superb and shows classic Gigondas spice, licorice, leather and copious red and black fruits. A blend of 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah aged in older foudre, this medium to full-bodied effort has loads of texture, fine tannin and a decadent, heady finish. It opens up nicely in the glass and should shine for 10-12 years or so.
Jeb Dunnuck December 2013 - The Wine Advocate