Medium, Medium-pale colour. Aromatically more impressive than you expect from the colour, deep with a faint edge of coffee – only turning redder and finer with a little tobacco and spice as you slowly drain the glass – no green notes. Light but intense in the mouth – it’s the slightly bright acidity that adds to the apparent intensity. Red berry fruit that slowly fades, good, understated velvet tannins. It’s precocious though quite well balanced, I’d be tempted to drink this younger rather than older.

Medium-plus cherry-red colour. Deep red, sweet cherry mixed with sweet vanilla oak – the fruit is nicely delineated – provided you keep the temperature below 20°C. Full flavour, perfectly presented with a strong vanilla infused finish – very high quality villages but very, very 2003.

Sweet, slightly powdery red fruit, almost a trace of blood-orange too. Following on from the 05’s in barrel, the house-style of supple, very fine tannins is again evident – lovely mouthfeel – it’s almost as if they are not there until you get a little dryness in the finish. Sweet, forward and interesting.

Medium-plus colour. The nose has intense fruit – more blue shaded than red. The palate has obviously ripe fruit that shows real depth, velvetty tannin. Intense and not at all jammy, this wine shouts out to advertise itself and is very impressive.