Michael Schuster | Blackberry-sweet to smell; full, fresh, and finely, if firmly tannic; deep and sweet in ripe black fruit, full, round, long to taste, ample and satisfying, a gentle subtlety of taste, mouth-coating, sapid, and with lovely fruit length; a most seductive abundance of ripe Merlot flesh, well-contained and defined by its Cabernet tannin frame. This will make a delicious bottle in its fruit- rich, fulsome style. At 49% there is a particularly high proportion of Merlot this year (it is usually more like one third), but Jean-Luc simply said, “The Cabernets were very small and lacking juice, and the Merlots so very good—so, why not include them all?” Why not indeed, and the result speaks for itself. You’ll be able to drink this relatively early, but it will keep and age well. 2028–50+.