Andrew Jefford | Deep, dense black-red. Sweet and fresh, as usual a total contrast to Montrose, with red as well as black fruits, the scent of milled flour, a lovely sweet cob-nut freshness, and some chocolate, too: very complete and beguiling. It’s very concentrated on the palate; vivid, too, and sweet in a classy, multi-layered way; the textures are fine, and it is at this stage perhaps the most allusive of all the St-Estèphes we are looking at. All that holds me back from a higher score is the fact that the wine doesn’t quite have the same depth of fruit as the Calon or the Montrose, or the same fresh poise that they have... and “fresh poise” is in a way the point about 2016. Lovers of the exoticism of Cos will nonetheless find much to enjoy here, and in that sense it is very true to the vintage in its own inimitable style. | 93

Michael Schuster | Closed to smell, but with a fine, ripe, blackcurrant-fragrant suggestion there; medium-full, finely but also very firmly tannic in texture; deep, ripe, long, and aromatically complex wine to taste; polished, subtle, mouthcoating, harmonious, with great length of flavor across the palate and to finish; class, scope, finesse, a most complete top-notch claret. An aristocrat nipping at the heels of the first growths! 2032–52+. | 95