Michel Bettane: Big color, large and velvety texture, evident high alcohol content, very 2009, perhaps slightly excessive, but saved by the quality of the tannins and their nobility. 17.5

Thierry Desseauve: Dark and thick color, superripe fruit, very rich and velvety body, with silky tannins; very comfortable; opulence, length, and at last, class and breed. 18.5

Michael Schuster: Subtle, ripe, cassis-like fruit to smell; beautifully balanced, rich, generous, firmly tannic, long-term expression of Palmer; a very sweetly ripe core fruit here, long, graceful, complex, subtly mineral and with superb fruit and fragrance length. A great expression of Palmer, warm and powerful and sinewy, and therefore fairly long-term, but eventually very satisfying indeed. 2025–45+. 18.5+