Medium colour, again with plenty of browning. The nose starts in a very tight way; some savoury notes but little else to latch onto. Very slowly a raspberry perfume with clear stem references begins to evolve. The first mouthful is of a perfectly balanced, if rather thin, wine. There is a little rasp from what remains of the tannin – it’s a nice touch of character. There is eventually an interesting extra dimension, and some intensity, in the mid-palate – this is not a food wine, it’s flavours are engulfed by just about anything. Without food there’s just enough sweetness, but overall, it’s hardly worth the effort. After the 66 Pommard of last week, this is something of a let-down.

A gorgeous nose of sweet, melting red fruits – super perfume – it smells more than 10 years older! The tannin has almost been resolved, though there’s still a bit of blocky ‘grab’. The flavours have a darker, possibly oak influenced edge. It’s a shame to spit this one out!

Lots of herby, green shades over the fruit. Concentrated, with plenty of tannin. Some complexity to the very nice fruit. The tannin is borderline ripe, but the wine is very long. A classic and interesting candidate for the cellar.

Medium-pale colour. Very much like the 1996 the nose has tons of complexity – again that core of red fruit shining through – lovely just to sniff. The palate is not dense, yet manages to be packed with flavour and complexity. In some respects it is still a little unruly, and certainly needs a few more years of maturation for ‘charm’ but was anyway great fun.