The second wine of Leoville Las Cases, the 2019 Le Petit Lion checks in as 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, 43% Merlot, and the rest Cabernet Franc that was brought up in 30% new French oak. It has a pure, beautifully balanced, elegant and medium to full-bodied style that carries lots of cassis fruit, notes of violets, tobacco, and sweet earth, terrific overall balance, and a lively, fresh, focused finish. It's another wine from this estate that builds beautifully with time in the glass. This stunning second wine will be long-lived.

Blackberry, blackcurrant and wet-earth character with spice and sweet tobacco. Bark and cloves, too. It's medium-bodied with fine-grained tannins and a long finish. Excellent second wine from Las Cases.

The 2019 Le Petit Lion is excellent, offering up nots of dark berries, plums, pencil shavings and loamy soil, followed by a medium to full-bodied, deep and lively palate that's nicely concentrated, concluding with a long, saline finish. It's produced from vines within the clos of Leoville-Las Cases itself—mainly young-vine Cabernet Sauvignon and old-vine, less optimally exposed Merlot in a block that borders Latour.