Another beautiful example of minerality, finesse, elegance, and complexity, this earthy, spicy 2006 exhibits sweet raspberry and red currant fruit accompanied by hints of barbecue smoke and tobacco leaf. Medium-bodied, pure, and not terribly powerful, it is built around delicacy and purity. Give it 2-4 years of bottle age, and drink it over the following 15 years.

Good deep red with ruby highlights. Ripe aromas of smoky redcurrant, mocha and tobacco. Lush, suave and sweet, in a rather modern, fruit-driven style. A fairly big, rich and chewy wine with lovely purity of redcurrant, cedar and tobacco flavor and pliant tannins. In recent years, this wine has consistently turned out to be riper and smoother than early barrel samples have suggested.

Tasted blind. Dark crimson. Evolved rim. Evolved, mature, round nose, not without charm. Hint of tarmacadam and very round supple tannins until some austerity on the finish. (JR)