The bottle is cold, but the nose starts surprisingly open, a hint of reduction perhaps, but this is transient. Becomes even wider, good depth too – beautiful fruit – sweet and fine. The texture is first-rate, super-smooth tannins dovetail into gorgeously creamy fruit. If there was just a hint more acidity you could guess this to be a 2002 (or maybe 2005 in another year or two). The tannin just shows a little after you swallow. Another gorgeous wine.
The nose is instantly brighter, redder and more ’round’. Softer and perhaps less precise but with an intense and persistent weight of fruit at its centre. The palate is full-wrapped velvet, though despite the fineness of these ripe tannins I’m a little concerned by their abundance. This wine is quite different to the GE, with even more extract that leads to a drying impression into the finish – full-on, rather than graceful and the flavours don’t quite etch into the palate like those of the GE. Looking to the long-term, there is a cool and concentrated quality to the fruit and the tannin will anyway lessen with time, and the glass was also emptied rather easily!
From 40 year-old vines raised in 30% new oak. The nose is rather ashy. Lots of material here, a wine that slowly expands into the finish. The fruit is pretty good but I find the tannins currently rather ungainly, to a certain extent, spoiling the fruit in the mid-palate. Everything seems ripe, so given 3-5 years for the tannins to soften and it might be almost good.
Medium, medium-plus colour. The nose starts with lots of spicy oak, slowly fading to leave a few diffuse, high-toned notes over a fainter sweet base, eventually a faint coffe note too. The palate is medium concentrated with grainy but ripe tannins. Black, almost scorched fruit and a little mouth watering. Lots of sweetness, medium length. Like their 03 NSG premier, still not a 03 style that I enjoy.
Perhaps it is a little passé to describe this wine as ’rounder’, but that is certainly the impression from the aromatics; similar to La Tâche except that there is a distinctly more mineral core and the fruit has an extra edge of cream bedecked fruit. Take a sip, and there is not the same ‘hit’ that you get from La Tâche – there is much more subtlety and understatement. More sophistication than any other wine in the line-up, the tannins are as fine as those of the RSV, but with none of their astringency. Better than superb? No, just different.
From 60 year-old vines raised in 40% new oak. The nose is a hint reductive, but there’s plenty of black fruit and raisin notes. A concentrated, astringent palate. Packed with extract, but I wouldn’t want to drink it now. It is easily spotted as a 2003, but has plenty of interest and could be almost good in time.
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.
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