From Rugiens Hautes. Deeply coloured. The nose is dominated by toasty oak, it needs at least 45 minutes before black, coffee edged fruit takes over, eventually with an edge of cream. The palate is lithe and fresh with pretty good tannins and quite some length. The fruit has good sweetness once you get past the oak, the acidity, however, is not fully ‘joined-up’ – it seems to stand proud and prickly from the wine. To be honest it took me quite a while to warm to this wine, but the last glass was really starting to come together and become interesting – worth returning to in 2-3 years.