Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: As is to be expected, this is the most full-bodied and robust of all the wines – long, smooth, majestic and minutely crafted. But we must confess to a weakness for the crisper aromas of the Angélus. The success of these two premiers crus naturally makes it a difficult task to judge many of the other crus (classed and unclassed) from this appellation. 17.5

Margaret Rand: Chewy tannins and fleshy fruit; very good, polished winemaking. Everything’s there, but it doesn’t quite sing. 17

Michael Schuster: Ripe and raisiny to smell – precisely that, this smells of ripe, raisin-like fruit, with a suggestion of the slightly medicinal, bitter-almond character of Amarone della Valpolicella. Elegantly balanced, full-bodied, concentrated wine with a fresh acidity and refined, dry-oak and grape tannin. Sweetly ripe, slightly raisin sec-imbued flavour, long across the palate, with good, warm (almost spirity), spicy length. A bit oak-dry in the long term? Speaks at least as much of its zealous viticulture and vinification as it does of its terroir. The issue here remains not whether this is good wine – it is, and indeed the class of the vineyard shows – but whether it is good claret, good premier grand cru classé St-Emilion? And nobody will really know that until we taste fully mature examples. 16.5/17?