How many white wines can hold for 2.5 hours over a long lunch and get better and better even as they warm up, and even after tasting next to some stellar reds? At 23 years old , this is just luscious and indulgent, filled with orange peel, mandarin, saffron, slate, citrus, goes long, hard not to fall in love. A rare wine and worth every effort to get hold of it.

Bright, pale yellow color. Highly complex but subtle aromas of yellow plum, honey and vanilla. Fatter and fuller than the young 2002, with superb thickness of texture but also terrific definition and cut. Big, chewy wine, with an almost saline impression of extract. This really fills the mouth. Very long and gripping on the back.

Note: Due to space limitations, no tasting notes have been included, only my qualitative score. Obviously, the 2001 dry whites are extremely long-lived wines. They can be drunk young or cellared for 20-30+ years. I recently had the pleasure of tasting the 1962 Domaine de Chevalier, which was still incredibly fresh and lively. In many ways, these whites age even more slowly than red Bordeaux.

Wonderfully nutty nose. Still very lemony and sharp-focussed. Super-tight for the moment. Needs quite a bit of time. Pinched at the moment. (JR)