Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: A very elegant wine, with pure and blossoming fruit, supple without thinness, silky and long. A classic wine, not as vigorous as some of its peers, but as usual putting on weight after a year in barrel. 17

Michael Schuster: Lightly fruity, creamy nose; medium-weight wine with an easy, flowing character, ripe, moderately complex, and with good medium length. Picked relatively early, and without the old vine Merlot and Cabernet Franc in the blend this year, ’07 VCC is all charm and freshness, lacking the density and drama that it has had in recent vintages. To drink early. 2012–18. 16