Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: A wine more remarkable for its finesse and subtlety than for its body, although even in this respect it is an improvement on some of the substandard wines that we saw at the end of the 1990s. Class and style are much in evidence but, to our minds, not so complete as it might be, given the terroir. We tasted an oakier, even better-defined sample at Moueix. 15.5

Margaret Rand: Tight, elegant and very long, with lots of depth. Very classic, very promising. 18

Michael Schuster: Mid-purple. Light, ripe-cherry fruit nose. Medium-full wine with a good balance of flesh to the refined, dry tannin. Quite dense for Belair, with well-sustained, delicate, fresh, ripe, cherry-scented, limestone-suffused fruit. Characteristic ‘transparent’ purity of flavour and gentle sweet length. A lovely Belair, very true to type, very traditional limestone côte style. Probably a touch austere for the ‘new-wave’ fans! 16