Andrew Jefford | Midnight in the garden of good and evil: impenetrable. Hmm... oaky; mentholated; cindery. I can’t see the fruit. Freighted and weighty, attractive in its sweetness, but honestly (compared to the last several vintages, where Valandraud has been impressive), this nose is a disappointment: all winery and hard to see the vineyard. I am looking at this alongside Angélus, which is clearly much finer this year. Sweet, inky, acidic, overwrought. I can taste the huge efforts... But it reminds me that for great wines there must also be an effortlessness. Which is to say that Nature has to come striding in and order things as she wishes, and if human beings strive over-much to beckon and solicit and beseech and command Nature, and Nature is still not in attendance, then it won’t work. (In that sense, Valandraud 2017 is a little like Cos d’Estournel 2009.) There are many good things about this wine (notably its tannins), and I am a huge admirer of everything M Thunevin has been able to achieve when Nature is in attendance, but overall I can’t say this 2017 is a success. Certainly showy, though; certainly a wine to taste and to discuss. | 88

Michael Schuster | Dense, concentrated, black-fruit-ripe nose; on the palate, this is full, fresh to firm in acidity, firm in dry tannin. A forbidding structure here: 15% ABV, plus a very firm new-wood-originated tannin. A deep, ripe fruit core, long and complex across the palate suggest a fine wine, but it is impossible to ignore the distractingly tannic frame. So, in essence this is a strong, powerful wine, with a very marked tannic astringency. Doubtless high quality, but you feel it is just a little bit too much for the ease and pleasure of actually drinking. Where is la buvabilité? Thus, very much a question of taste. This is good wine, I guess, but its proportions and force are not to my taste as a table wine, though they may well be to others. Another 2017 that speaks more of a winemaking style than of vintage or origin. I can see behind the structure, but I doubt the quality that is there will ever be pleasurably visible. Needs, in my view, at least a decade, though those who relish such proportions may enjoy it earlier. 2030–47+. | 92