Medium-plus colour once more. Here the nose is really about pinot (oops – Nuits! – well, maybe…) with a top to bottom elegance, plenty of floral, violet, references too. In the mouth this has extra sweetness and also is much more silky; yet roll it around in your mouth and you’ll find lovely acidity and no lack of velvety tannin – you just need to look for it. The fruit in the mouth is quite high toned, but very pretty. This is actually very lovely now, but has a reserve of balance – which I hope will allow me to still enjoy my last bottle in at least another 20 years. It’s not super-long, but it is super-tasty. Yum. A point worth noting is that if the wine reaches the heady heights of a mere 20 degrees, it becomes a bit diffuse an less impressive – keep to 18 or below and all is well.

The colour is starting to show some age. The aromas are a poster-child for the vintage, I can taste it too. Not for me.

Relatively deep colour with purple hints. The nose starts with sugary dark fruit of real depth, though less width – slowly it adds a creamy coating and eventually red berry notes begin to peek through. Fresh impact and plenty of extract too; the wine/wood tannins are smooth and impart an acceptably bitter note through the core of the wine – the sweetness of the dark cherry fruit is quite enough to balance, mixed with iron and minerals. The tannin and some of the bitterness are the main items of note in the finish, though these will fade and bring to the fore the creamy fruit that plays second fiddle today. It impresses now, but it will clearly impress more in the future.