Simon Field | Defiant, midnight color, softer at the rim. Cotton candy here; a very serious aromatic marries many components—oak, fruit, tannin, acid—not necessarily all on speaking terms yet. Behind that, there is very ripe fruit, almost raisin-like, hints of toffee apple, prune, and high cocoa chocolate. The palate makes an impressive attempt to affect the marriage and to resolve the inherent contradictions. Tight-grained new oak has been put to good use here; it will take time for full integration, therefore, but we can hope that the weight and quality of the fruit itself will be complicit. | 93

Andrew Jefford | Very impressive for its years: saturated red purple, opaque at the heart and deep purple at the rim. The aromas here are full, deep, beefy, spicy; deep and rewarding, with some exotic incense spice, too. An evidently ambitious wine, where high-quality vineyard fruit has received lavish cellar intentions. (The oak is evident, too.) Almost baroque, and there is in fact still a whisper of reduction dancing around the wine. On the palate, it is very deep, very concentrated, very ample, with very ripe fruit. It’s still young in terms of its maturity cycle, and the fruit may grow prune-like with time. Nonetheless, it is still a terrific wine with a lot left to give, and it would make for exciting mealtime drinking. There are grand, driving, masterful, if slightly abrupt tannins. | 93

Anthony Rose | Deep and dense in color, this has an aromatic pull based on ripe-fruit warmth, spice, and oak that immediately draws you in; and the dark fruit is ripe and sweet in flavor, albeit underpinned by a macho power and structure that has you clinging on until it lets you go, still helpless in the grip of a chunky, opulent red; classic iron fist in velvet glove. | 90