Medium-plus cherry-red colour, no evolution of the colour yet. The nose started powdery and a little mildewy, it took over an hour in the glass to clean up and show high toned red fruits at the top and just a little blacker material below. Sweet, quite well textured and with lovely mid-palate intensity. The tannins are less grainy than many 2002’s and still reasonably well-covered. There’s plenty of good acidity to ride you through into an equally good finish – though there’s just a little finishing bitterness – this will resolve over the next 2 years. Still a relative bargain for the quality, I expect this wine will have a good long life.

Medium-plus colour. The nose is sweet with vanilla accented red and black fruit. The palate is equally sweet and ripe, quite plush though at the moment I find a slightly annoying vanilla flavour through the core of the wine. Just-right acidity and quite long. Provided the ‘ice-cream effect’ fades this will be super.