Medium cherry red, perhaps shading to a more ruby hue at the rim. The nose starts more oaky and with disappointingly thin fruit – it needs the oak to dissipate to give a more interesting balance, and dissipate it does leaving a nice high-toned expression. Eventually it’s a sweet mix of slightly caramel-tinged red fruit. Nice mouthfeel, less apparent concentration and not such a long finish, though the acidity is almost good. Tasty, very well balanced and serious but ultimately less serious than the excellent 2001.

A later harvest for this wine – another 10 days after the ban des vendanges to allow the phenolics to ripen. Medium, medium-plus cherry red. The nose is sweet and starts a little heavy, slowly becomes a little higher toned over vanilla notes. The palate is fat, ripe and sweet, just a little purer cherry fruit at the back of the palate that follows into the vanilla driven finish. Tannins and acidity are conspicuous by their absence – actually everyone loved this, but I suspect it will be at it’s apogee over the next 5 or 6 years, rather than 15-16, not too much obvious ‘Vosne character’ either at this pre-release stage.

Medium cherry-red. The nose takes a little while to lose a dense woody note, but once gone there’s a slightly heavy and quite ripe morello cherry, becomes purer still and higher-toned with time. The palate is medium density and also needs a few minutes to iron-out the oak, but it’s well balanced and shows good length. The style is of a light to middle-weight with an extra, slightly vanilla tinged dimension on the finish. Like the nose there’s an ever improving impression to this wine, particularly the finish and the nose – I’d give this at least 3 or 4 years before returning – should be more than worthwhile.