Michel Bettane and Thierry Desseauve: Suave and energetic and, as usual, with sovereign balance; perhaps slightly less aromatically complex than Pétrus but with faultless delicacy and presence. 19

John Gilman: The wine is deep, complex, ripe, and quite classic in its blend of aromatics, offering up scents of black cherries, dark plums, chocolate, Cuban cigar smoke, a touch of nuttiness, a complex base of soil, and a classy touch of new oak. On the palate, the wine is deep, full-bodied, powerful, and quite broad-shouldered, with a sappy core of fruit, firm ripe tannins, good focus and delineation, and excellent length and grip on the powerful finish. This is an extremely well-made example of the vintage, without a hair out of place and with superb focus for such a powerful wine, but at this stage I have to give a slight nod to the superb 2009 and (especially) the absolutely classic 2008. 2023–75. 18.5

Michael Schuster: Impressively dense and sweet-cored to smell; the firmly tannic structure of the vintage but rich and sumptuous in constitution as well; ample, generous, mouth-coating wine, spicy and complex, with an abundance of matter: ripe fruit, clayey density and minerality, too; very long and close-knit across the palate, with a fat, sweet core fruit that persists on the prolonged, juicy aftertaste. A dominance of fruit promises tremendously well for the future. Ample, satisfying, sweet-cored, muscular, complete. Requires plenty of time but a great Trotanoy in prospect. 2025–40+. 18.5/19+