February 16, 2024 - Earthy nose of forest floor and tobacco. Elegant medium weight, savory long finish.
January 21, 2024 - Drinking well now. Very balanced with red fruit and smooth tannins. Drinking better than the 2005. It is an open wine and needs only an hour to decant.
April 1, 2023 - Deep garnet color in the glass. Beautiful raspberry, blackberry and blueberry nose. Dark berry palate with balanced acidity and notable grainy tannins that soften with time in the glass. The lengthy finish completes this enjoyable experience.
January 31, 2023 - From a bottle purchased at auction. Almost no bricking. The tannins were finer grained and riper than those of the last bottle but still quite drying. Better on the nose than the palate. There was more fruit than tertiary action, and it was still showing a fair amount of oak. There were plenty of red and black fruits and it had decent balance, but the tannins really robbed this of what good there was.
Much better on day two—softer, deeper, and more cohesive and with a longer finish. I now know that the key to enjoying these is air or waiting a bit longer. That being said, I still plan on drinking these up this year. 13.5% ABV (good; high average/**/15/88)
January 6, 2023 - First of six auction bottles, this one with a base neck fill. A broad-shouldered tannic monster on PnD, and an hour of air didn’t make a difference. A little bricking but not much tertiary development evident. Red over black fruits, cedar, and a touch of undergrowth on the pungent nose and mostly red fruits on the nicely concentrated but very coarse, tannic palate. Even after four hours, this was still bristling with tannins. I was going to say the good news is there was plenty of fruit and one might wait and see if time helps, but at sixteen years of age and with such coarse tannins, I suspect this is what it is and that waiting for the wine to soften is just waiting for Godot. I’m going to enjoy these this year. 13.5% ABV (good; average/**/15/87)
October 29, 2022 - Nose is very expressive, still some red fruit and seems complex. Cuts short in the palate, but still enjoyable. Acidity is medium high and tannins are very fine. Not much tertiary, although it shows maturity, still with the fruit, it’s alright. Starting to smell like tomato plant, you know what that means - drink up people ✌️
March 25, 2022 - Perfect cork for a 15 yo wine. Barely wet. Very small amount of silty sediment. Pure, clear and brilliant ruby red. Medium dark in colour. Still quite youthful one the nose with barely any tertiary notes. Mostly black currant and blackberry, some light cedar notes, camphor and graphite. Medium-full bodied, very dry, good fruit extract, good acidity, tannic, but softly so and in balance. Chalky black currents, blue plums and minerals. Tart, black fruit and a dry finish that is quite long. Pretty nice!
October 5, 2021 - Served at a large party at the house. Just my late reflection so no score. People liked it. Quite a classic Haut-Medoc. Elements well placed, nicely concentrated. No hint of the leafiness from earlier days.
September 1, 2020 - Superfleshy, Rich, aged very well, of course has bits of rope prun and hints of nutmeg due to time, but still superkuizy absolutely nice to drink., love the Dirty unfiltered rough first mouthfeel which stayed with the wine all the way drinking it, therefore it is maybe little ahead of its time made, because this nowadays is much more appreciated, rather than supercöean Filtrated Blanc and crisp. I like that but of course there are other opinions to that, for me this embodys quite a lot traditional wine production styles pre-Parker more Johnson wines - but that’s just my opinion -
This evaluation may change depends on your perseption
July 29, 2020 - Nicely classic blackberry musty wooden nose. Oak is a bit sweet like an American bottle almost. Entry follows the nose nicely with a rich taste. A fairly light weight mid mouth slightly hollowing out. Followed by a tasty finish with a bit of tobacco. There is still just a hint of bitter leafiness coming late that a few years ago I considered a clear negative. This has now melted significantly with age. Just a testament to Bordeaux aging. This is now punching above its weight. Nothing spectacular but aging well.