Andrew Jefford: Saturated black-red. Rounded, warm, enticing, though without the fresh-fruit focus of some of the other wines in this small peer group. It’s almost as if it is a little older and more harmonious. On the palate, by contrast, it is perhaps the widest and most accommodating of all: lovely languid, thicktextured flavors, with lashings of tar, earth, and minerals packed around a core of vigorous, penetrating black fruit. I pick up a brandied richness here, too, which I like; it’s a very different thing to spiritiness. Gratifying, full-breasted, fiery, solar, and generous, if just a little bit skulking 17

Richard Mayson: Deep youthful color but not quite as deep and dark as some of the others in this flight; demure, but somehow a bit hollow, in that awkward closed-in phase but not nearly as much behind it as some of the other wines here—perhaps a bit loose-knit. Soft, very sweet initially, some soft flesh here, with firm, rather lean tannins rising in the mouth on to the finish, where it falls away. Well made, but not a long-term keeper 14 Jancis Robinson: Very dark crimson. Baked nose slightly reminiscent of my Russian fortified wines. Very sticky, without a real core of fruit in the middle. Dry clarety build, with intensity and alcohol but not the balance of some others. Dry, peppery finish, with lots of alcohol. Drink 2015–25 17