Andrew Jefford | Dense, saturated midnight black. Ample oak here, and we have to hope that this settles down with time; there’s lots of brooding black plum beneath, as well as chocolate, spice, and Havana leaf. Opulent and giving; generosity incarnate for the vintage. The palate has great wealth, density, texture, and dropping fullness, with very fine tannins falling like snow through the dark currant and plum fruits. On the palate, too, the oak is a little more settled than on the nose at this stage. This is a lush, cossetting, luxurious reading of the vintage though not in any way overdrawn or obvious; it offers huge pleasure already, and if time can engrave a little more finesse into the wine then a score in the higher 90s may beckon. | 93

Michael Schuster | Closed, but a cedary, gravelly, aromatically promising nose; rich, middleweight wine, fresh and fine in moderately firm tannin; sweetly ripe blackcurrant flavor, subtly fleshy, long to taste, aromatically complex, gently mouthcoating, long and smokily resonant to finish. Here there is class, poise, restraint. Very fine, and refined, Smith Haut Lafitte. Still needs a few years yet to start showing at its best. 2026–40+. | 93