There is also plenty of oak on this nose too, set against higher-toned aromas and some herbs. Velvet texture and decent fruit too, very decent! Again the wine is served with plenty of oak, but it’s a very good wine for all that.

Medium rusty-red. The nose is a blend of stemmy perfume – and at this age it really is perfume – and a higher-toned fresh plum fruit that flirts with a floral dimension; it’s quite lovely and keeps drawing me back for another sniff as the fruit changes to cherry and even redcurrant with time. In the mouth it doesn’t quite have that melt-in-the-mouth texture that you get with a perfectly matured wine, but there’s freshness and a structure that remains bright, indeed almost stern. The acidity is just about perfect, being the baseline for a beautifully understated but fine finish. Such a shame that I have only three or four more of these.

’Only’ forty percent whole clusters. The nose starts dark but quickly opens up higher tones too. Lovely soft texture, this wine rolls over your tongue like it was made to measure – fab!

Dark, slightly herbal fruit. In the mouth this is full and masculine, there’s a stickiness to the tannin too. Lovely length – this lingers excellently.

Medium ruby-red colour with a faint browning at the rim. The nose is sweet and rather stemmy, there’s a faint beefy note that has me flirting with the notion of brett, and some mixed herbs. In the mouth the wine starts narrow, slowly opening over tongue. The acidity is a little sharp and metallic in flavour, it makes you forget to look for tannin, which whilst understated, is still a little blocky. Reasonable length and some sweetness, but today, no love.

Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose offers up mineral and earth notes with dark fruit – it’s very nice. Linear in the mouth before widening into a good finish. It’s complex and quite interesting.

Medium, medium-plus colour still with some cherry-red colour. Deep aromatics, with dense darker cherry fruit thats not perfectly fine but has a lovely faint mocha halo. Mouth-filling, well balanced acidity and tannin that comes through on the mid-palate but has already faded before the finish. Actually the finish is rather good with small after-shocks of creamy flavour. Today the mid-palate flavours have a bitter edge that contasts well with the sweet fruit but was just on a little too high level to start – after an hour and with food I’d rather say bitter chocolate – nothing left for tomorrow, very nice.

Deep cherry-red colour, almost a little purple. Wide aromatics with slight white-pepper spice over a deeper but reticent black cherry. Excellent intensity of black cherry fruit, super acidity to balance and tannin that is submerged in the extract. It’s a powerful combination for a villages wine, a little mineral too but it’s also very linear and obviously closing-in on itself – faint black chocolate shows on the finish. Super villages but be prepared to wait.

A high-toned nose with a little sweet, red fruit. Sweet and ripe with plenty of acidity. Elegant with a long finish – this is a nice wine.

Medium-plus ruby-red colour. The nose is brown-sugar sweet with quite some understated density, very subtle stems and eventually a mix of black cherry and a last note of redcurrant. The palate is very well textured with fine grained tannin offsetting dense fruit and very good acidity. The only negative today is a little oak-driven bitterness on the finish. This is showing as a very young wine – much younger and denser than the 1995 at the same stage of evolution (or perhaps better to say age) – I wouldn’t open another for 3-5 years. Perhaps it’s time to dig out another 95…

Medium-pale ruby-red. The nose is heavy with the musky scent of strawberry, raspberry and the smoky stems – it’s a beauty. The palate has a soft entry that nicely widens with the help of understated acidity. The equally soft tannin is still there as an undercurrent as you head into a finish of creamy baked red fruit and still just a little bitterness – here for the first time the acidity is not so seamless. As is usual for this village cuvée in a reasonable vintage, it’s still not quite ready to drink at 12 years of age, but I’m happy there are more in the cellar!

Good deep colour – at least vs the average for the vintage. The nose starts really rather interesting and fruitily complex, and hour or two in the glass doesn’t really do it any favours though, a little chocolate perhaps and a cedar note, but not so nice as the start. The palate is more anonymous at the start, yet rather annoyingly improves – so you can have the nose or the taste, but today, not both together… Good concentration and also the texture is not bad, interesting length too. That cedar note from the nose also goes through the core of the palate and into the finish too – just a little to emphasised for my taste. Next day the wine is certainly becoming astringent and drying out a little which might not bode well for the future. If I was to drink a second bottle I’d do it over an hour or two and just let it change in the glass.