Andrew Jefford | Dark, saturated purple-black, opaque at the core. There’s a cool, almost mentholated cast to the black fruits here, but the aromas are very pure, lifted, and have a floral strain, as well as that mint-leafiness. Finely crafted and seductive, while remaining true to the year and to this property’s relatively elevated position on the Côte. A surprise when the wine hits the tongue; there is almost a sweet veil to the fruit, which the aromas didn’t prefigure (in most cases in 2017, the surprise is reversed: sweeter, riper scents followed by the shock of cool, slender fruit on the palate). Fine concentration and fruit intensity here; ample drive and cut. That initial tip-of- the-tongue sweetness dissipates into piercing architectural acidity with time on the tongue. Wedgwood tannins, too. | 90

Michael Schuster | Ripe blackberry-sweet fruit on the nose; rich, fullish wine, fresh in acidity, finely firm in tannin, a still-youthful constitution. Plenty of sweet, ripe, fragrant fruit, framed by a firm tannin texture, moderate complexity, nice persistence, but that will need, and reward, a fairly long wait. Gently chewy St-Emilion. 2027–37+. | 90