All that lovely richness on the palate with aromas of toast, butter joining the slightly lemon, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf notes which all translate to the palate. Perfect with fat pacific oysters.

Savoury dark hued fruits, earthy underpin but not showing massive tertiary notes, rich rather than textured. Pleasant with both duck and chicken.

This played far nicer with food that I expected it would. Dark fruits didn't feel so baked and the alcohol was less obvious, soft tannic burr meant that its weight was more appropriate for chicken liver parfait which it ably coped with. Rather lovely.

Elegant, yes, but still with that rather muted quality from its last tasting. Still in the black and red cherry spectrum, earthy savoury underpin, soft tannic burr. I was hoping for a little more.

The power was still there in this bottle but that blood/iron note I picked up last time I tried it has morphed into quite sharp acetic acid note on the palate which rather dominated the other characteristics. Fortunately the tannic weight and general heft was there to cope with chateaubriand. Pity.

Bright black fruits married to quite tight tannins made this a great food match. Still showing surprisingly primary with only a little earthy sous bois to mark the age. Pleasant.