Medium plus colour. The nose is wide, ripe and softly red fruited. In the mouth you have to get past a little dissolved carbon dioxide – it’s the first time that David Croix hasn’t racked during elevage – frankly you need an hour after opening or a few minutes in a decanter. You return to find a really good depth and balance and an uncommon length for the label. The nose has now taken on an additional toffee dimension. I get the impression there is also a reasonable amount of village level material in this as it’s very good.

Now coming into the last bottles of this case – only 4 remain. Medium, medium-plus cherry red. The nose is quite 2003 in style yet shows beautifully delineated red and blue fruits and more unusually for 2003 there are violets too over a creamy base – so far it’s better than many grand crus from this vintage. The palate is less fine, but it’s sweet, medium intensity and quite well mannered. The fruit has really good density – more so than most bourgognes – chapeau. Shame that so few remain in the cellar – a real sniffer’s wine – and you don’t get to say that very often with a bourgogne!

I still have a few of the 2003 left and it’s easy to under-estimate how good these wines can be. A friend’s ‘house red’ in recent months was the 2003 Bourgogne from Chanson – worthy, tasty, sweet and simple; we followed one with the Giroud 03 and there was an incredible extra dimension of fruit in the mid-palate and finish – as good as many village wines, but what about the 04 version? A wide and fresh powdery fruit nose. The wine is fresh, with some sweetness but walks a tightrope with the acidity that is just a little prickly. The fruit is nice and so are the aromatics, better than the 2003, but I prefer the texture of the 2003.