The nose is deeper and darker of aspect; dusky, fecund – quite exciting. Slowly the nose ‘brightens’ to bring higher-toned spicy elements to the fore, aniseed and red-wrapped fruit. The palate is less obviously sweet, some separation in the mouth between the impression from the fruit vs the tannin and extract that comes through on the mid-palate. The length is haunting, slowly drying out onto your teeth. This is an enigmatic wine today, almost two personalities in one glass – if they marry this will be a superb wine – it is anyway a larger step-up from the Echézeaux than in recent years.

There won’t be so many press tastings for this vintage as the average harvest across the domaine was a mere 18hl/ha – I guess I was lucky to taste this. Medium-plus colour. The nose is wide and deep with fresh berries, a little time in the glass gives up an extra spicy edge and extra purity to the fruit. In the mouth it’s fat and creamy and is loaded with velvety tannin and concentrated dry extract of fruit on the finish. This is a fascinating expression of the vintage, drier and less fresh than 2004 which I prefer.