Medium-plus colour. The nose is a lovely deep and slightly musky affair – above is a clean red-fruit note. Beautifully fresh and intense but with just enough cushioned padding to the palate to bring balance – you will have to do plenty of chewing to find the buried tannin. This is just so ebulient today that I wonder if it can ever show better(?) As the mid-palate narrows with age I expect this might become a little mouth-puckering, but today, yum!

Medium, medium-plus colour. Right from the start there are high, almost floral tones leaking from the glass – below is a redder fruit note. There’s plenty of acidity here but it’s suddenly consumed by a width of extract, slightly rustic finishing tannin and some creamy vanilla oak. The finish has that vanilla too and a slightly greeny/herbal element. Interesting, engaging almost but I’d personally be looking for a hint more composure if I was going to go long on this wine, that said, this was the perfect Burgundian food match – with Lasagna!

Medium, medium-plus colour. For over one hour there’s a slightly reductive, foisty cardboard behind the fruit – it’s not TCA and it’s not on the palate. Slowly the fruit comes to the fore and 99% covers the cardboard – and it’s lovely fruit – red-black and edged with a little toffee and old-vine cream. In the mouth it needs about 30 minutes to build to a decent level of concentration and nice texture, there’s also a good lick of ripe tannin in and around the mid-palate. Depth of fruit and a nice finish. One third of the bottle was saved for day 2 – and it turned out really well – no strange smells, just brilliant red berry fruit and creamy depth, really super. I blame some reduction for the initial aroma note, as the oxygenation certainly cured it!