SF | Deep colour with an impressive nose which marries dark fruit, spice; tobacco and crushed pepper, then cloves and thyme. \the palate i gifted with weight and a crescendo, supported by the tannins which are both ripe and austere, a pleasing paradox, which often flag a top quality St Estephe. Quod erat demonstrandum. Need time, one hardly need say! 94
AJ | MIdnight black; opaque. This wine has a very similar aromatic profile to the Dames, yet the volume as you'd expect is turned up further: plant essences, essentially, count for everything here. Even the fruit is subdued alongside them. It's almost as if we've gone to somewhere else altogether. This was so striking that I had to pour the wine into other heavily wined glasses, just to check that what I was smelling was true, but it is. It is a very complete aroma, very harmonious (astonishingly so for this youthful stage), magnificently layered for such a young wine. Amazing stuff. Calon, Cos, Montrose: all St Estephe, yet three completely different approaches to the vintage. On the palate: hugely complex, an aromatic essence, an apotheosis of freshness. The Zeitgeist incarnate. Wonderful, lively, pure, limitlessly athletic: a magnificent achievement. I have a few bones to pick with the Zeitgeist, since I love wealth, texture and the resonance that comes with ample ripeness; I'm not sure that we are not throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. But what's true is that 2020 gave the producers (after all that work) the chance to produce these kind of Ariel or fairy clarets which are all weightlessness and energy, and this is a great, great example.Drink Dates: 2029 - 2043.