Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: This wine isn’t the model of perfection that is Gruaud; it offers the same massive substance as Barton, but with tannins that are currently a bit rougher, and it seems to be slightly overextracted. It has a great future, though. With a wine of this caliber, we’ll naturally need to retaste it in a year. 18.5

Michael Schuster: A seductively perfumed nose of sweet, ripe blackberry and cassis; beautifully balanced wine, concentrated, elegant, discreet, and fresh, with its usual particularly fine-textured but long-term tannin; lovely ripeness of core fruit, gently spicy flavor, long in the mouth, very finely gravelly, marked complexity; aromatic, aristocratic, and very long to finish. 2020–40+. 17.5/18+