A solid wine with berry, currant and mineral character. Full-bodied, with silky tannins and a long finish. Racy. Alfred Tesseron is making excellent wine nearly every year now. One of the few 2002s better than 2001. Best after 2008. James Suckling

Red-ruby. Cool aromas of blackcurrant, espresso and menthol. Then sweet and pliant in the mouth, with concentrated, very pure currant, chocolate and mint flavors. Wonderfully smooth for the vintage. Broadens out impressively on the back end, finishing with firm, ripe tannins.

Tasted at Bordeaux Index’s Pontet-Canet dinner at The Ledbury. Compared to more recent vintages, the 2002 certainly has a lighter, perhaps more straightforward nose with blackberry, bay leaf and just a hint of liquorice. The palate is medium-bodied with firm tannins, well knit but not quite as deep as the 2003 or 2004. Powdery in texture towards the finish with that tincture of leafiness coming through so typical of the vintage. Tasted February 2011.

This wine has seemingly gone to sleep and is in a dormant, ungracious stage, exhibiting notes of green tea leaves intermixed with red and black currants in its dusty nose. A medium-bodied wine with moderately high tannin and a certain austerity, it seems to be a much less impressive effort than I thought from barrel or is it just impossibly closed? There is still substantial size and tannic clout to the wine, but the fruit seems to have gone into hiding. Anticipated maturity: 2011-2020+.

As most well-informed insiders in Bordeaux know, proprietor Alfred Tesseron has been doing everything right since 1994 in order to fully develop the enormous potential of this vineyard adjacent to Mouton-Rothschild. Some serious work is done in the vineyard including de-budding, de-leafing, and crop-thinning. The harvest usually takes place in several attempts trying to maximize ripeness and there are two separate sorting tables. Yields have dropped dramatically, and of course there is a severe selection.