SF | Beguiling amber, tawny core, with a gentle, dusky fade to the rim, deferential to the passage of time and yet also defiant, such is the intensity of both the nose and the palate. Still young after all these years (your correspondent shares the same birth year, and takes heart!), the acidity domineering but not aggressive, the vestigial fruit supporting an ensemble that resounds across the years with the call of unabashed quality. 94
AJ | Bright and translucent, though a little browner (and less ebony) than the very deepest of its peers. There are still some russet glints here, so maybe it has spent longer in bottle (and less time in wood) than they have. A super nose, for all that: very fine aromatic presence and comeliness, without exaggerated saturation of age: warm beams of glowing dried fruit, mushroom, warm, felled wood, leather, and roast nut. Lively, fresh, and vigorous still; very much a wine in the prime of life and not yet a sensational relic. Wonderful toffee and caramel, lent poise by citrus and plant essences; smooth, ample, rich, active, surging across the palate. Scoring these wines at the top end is impossibly difficult since they are all excellent in their own way… and who is to say which way is the way? 2024–29. 92
RM | Good, mid-deep amber-mahogany, with an olive-green glint on the rim; gently lifted on the nose, green-olive fragrance, with sublime richness and depth; fine, rich, profound, dried-fig and quince-marmalade intensity on the palate, still with an element of freshness and vivacity after more than half a century in wood and then in bottle. Outstanding for its era. 97