A developed, medium ruby red. The nose has a lovely dried red fruit and raisin aspect – just a little coffee and smokey ash too. The palate unfortunately is a bit of a let-down: The fruit is nice enough – as is the texture – but from the mid-palate onwards this is a little bitter, weedy (for a Grand Cru) and woody. In fact the wood note hovers perilously close to taint, but we had two bottles with consistent notes. A shame, as I know the 1999 is a very nice wine. A friend had Alex’s ’98 V-R Suchots and it showed far better than this. Not worth the entrance price.

Bought in as wine. Dark young cherry colour. The deep nose has blueberry and black cherry. Fat with big velvetty tannins and a black fruit profile. Lovely concentration, though slightly diffuse – it’s hard to easily pick the individual elements. Overall this has very good style. The winery is keeping back a quantity of this wine – so if you spot some on the shelf in 3 or 4 years time – snap it up!