Chateau Gruaud Larose Saint-Julien Bordeaux France 2019 (13.5% ABV) — 92.5
AJ | Dense, saturated dark black-red, opaque at the core. Affable, forest-fresh aromas which draw the drinker in, with drifting chocolate and cigar behind the fruits. Some savoury notes qualify the always driving and intense 2019 acid structures, though the tannins are light and submissive. Better complexity and breadth of flavour than many of its peers here for all that.Drink Dates: 2024 - 2033. 91
MS | (Now ‘closed’ with a wax, rather than a lead, capsule). Tight to smell still but, like the Beychevelle (next to it in the line up), dense, packed, gravelly; full and firm in constitution, plenty of matter, lively in acidity, firm but very fine in tannin, long term proportions; a concentrated, tautly defined wine, freshly ripe to taste, long across the palate, very long and aromatic to finish; close knit, a touch austere for the present, but fine and complex and full of long term promise. This will definitely need time.Drink Dates: 2035 - 2055+. 94