Michael Schuster: Inky colour; dense to smell; rich, well-constituted, fairly muscular and tannic St-Julien; a mass of fruit; long in the mouth and with good length - a bit of a monolith at the moment, certainly a long-term wine (15+ years). 16+

Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: A lovely, generous, powerful wine with firm, thoroughbred tannins, but quite distinct from the other St-Julien crus in character and form. The notes of soot and new leather on the nose had an almost Right Bank ringing to them, while the aromatic persistence tended more towards violets and liquorice than spice. So far, not quite as precise and assertive as the Leoville. 16