Jesús Barquín: Warm and toasty nose, overripe fruit and a hint of VA. Tannic and concentrated. A tad unbalanced. 13.5

Alex Hunt: Gorgeous leathery signs of maturity on this nose. The palate still has furry tannin cloaking the fruit, so it cannot quite live up to the succulent, resolved promise of the nose. An unfortunate case of structure aging too slowly. 14.5

Andrew Jefford: Saturated black-red. Oaky—indeed, one of the oakiest so far, but it’s all classic toasty French stuff, and there are classed-growth Bordeaux that are oakier. (Perhaps, a decade on, there is a little less oak on this wine’s younger brothers.) Underneath there’s a nice swaying bank of blackcurrant bushes and plum trees. No stones or cistus in these aromas, though. On the palate, this is big and generous but attractively round; those fruits do most of the work, and they do it very well, too: ripe yet fresh, tannin-bonded, with the complexity that is the Douro’s birthright supposing that great care has been taken all the way along the line. There’s superb wealth, depth, and complexity in this wine’s textures. Yet another outstanding candidate, and in remarkably good shape for its age. 17.5