Andrew Jefford | Saturated, deep, midnight black-purple. Dark, dense, smoky-sinewy aromas: earth, incense, a little Havana leaf over a base strata of ripe but not overripe plum, damson, and blackberry fruits. It’s a less evolved, settled, and composed aroma than the best of the Left Bank wines at this stage, but hugely promising. Despite all that dense meatiness, there is a charm and a fragrance there, too—indeed, a floral note, as if it was trying to be a kind of Right Bank Côte-Rôtie. On the palate, it is almost shockingly concentrated, astonishingly lively, remarkably fragrant: a tour de force. Everything is coaxed up toward maximum volume here, but it is far from vulgar or evident. In this respect, it is quite a contrast to Clos Fourtet, for example, alongside which we are tasting this wine; that wine is ripely subterranean, quietly brooding, thick-textured but undemonstrative, passively tenacious, whereas this is forceful, almost attacking, and dazzlingly showy. Every collector should have some, just to see: one of the references of the vintage. | 94

Michael Schuster | A fine, ripe, lightly mineral-tinged nose; full, finely tannic, very nicely balanced; deep core-fruit sweet and flavorsome behind the fine tannin frame, long and graceful, the power notwithstanding, and with excellent fragrant length. A lovely wine, but it will need time to mellow and harmonize. 2028–45+. | 93