Andrew Jefford | Dark black-purple-red, still just opaque. Complex, fine, and riper than many, with scents of violet, rose, and tangerine peel to qualify the currant, confit cherry, and dimpled plum. Beautifully crafted and engaging. Deep, soft- textured, teasingly complex, finely detailed, with all of the natural freshness of the vintage but tickled out to food-friendly ripeness, and with flavory, palpable tannins. The aromatic finesse is here on the palate, too, and this would be a 2017 to spend time over and dissect. Excellent work from this distinguished team. There is more width, sweetness, texture, and tannin here than for any other Pessac-Léognans we have looked at, yet nature’s hand has not been forced. (Indeed, there seems to be a generally sunnier tone to Pessac-Léognan than to the Médoc this year, as you can clearly see in the Pessac-Léognan-acid styles.) | 93

Michael Schuster | Clear ripe fruit to smell here; medium-full, fresh in acidity, finely dry in tannin, a nice ripe balance in the year; crisply sweet fruit, both length and breadth of flavor, almost a generosity in the year’s cooler context, alongside class and complexity within this more slender style. This will be very nice in due course, but the tannin texture will need a bit of time. 2025–35+. | 91