Tim Atkin : Deep, youthful colour. Very ripe, essence of Cabernet nose with a lot of new oak. Palate a little dry and oak-dominated, with high alcohol in evidence. Chocolaty, lots of oak, but drying out on the finish. 13

Oz Clarke: Pretty deep red and almost no age. The nose is not very exciting - some cherry fruit but a bit flat. The palate is a bit tannic and metallic for this weight of wine. There’s some quite nice minerality, but minerality is a difficult path to tread in red wines. Metallic tones in a red wine can make the wine seem short on fruit and rather thin. And that almost happens here. If the fruit were a bit richer, a bit blacker, more blackcurrant and black cherry, then this slightly dusty minerality would work better. As it is the wine is okay, but the mix of slight nut-husk flatness and metal holds it back. A pity, because there’s some pretty good dark-plum fruit. 15

Michael Schuster: Inky purple; oak and blackberry nose; rich, strong, potent wine with a strong tannin and strong acidity; abundant ripe fruit here, clearly of good quality, but withatannin and acid that make it fierce to drink; good length, but overall somewhat strangled by its (imposed) structure. 15