Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: A generous nose defined at this stage by petits fruits rouges, a slender body, very fine and racy tannin, with enough noble austerity for a great Bordeaux wine, and nothing artificially showy. 17.5/18

Michael Schuster: Black purple; dense to smell, but currently with a rather woody new oak impression dominating the very ripe fruit; medium-full wine with the refined fruit masked by the distractingly dry texture of 100% new barrels, but with good fruit length. The quality of the vineyard is in there, but it is difficult to see the wine for the wood at the moment, and therefore difficult to assess, too. Only time will tell whether this will balance out. I’m not at all sure. Haut-Brion and La Mission, for example, are both in only 70% new oak this year. The texture suggests this will need plenty of time … unless you like a very much grippier style. 2017 on? NS