Still a bit of a brick house, with very solid charcoal and loam notes forming the base while the core of dense fig, blackberry and black currant confiture flavors settles in. This is seriously long, and the smoldering tobacco and roasted alder notes just keep going and going through the finish. This hasn't really started to unwind yet.--Blind 2000 Bordeaux retrospective (December 2015). JM

Violets, truffle, spicy plum and dark chocolate get the party going. The luscious, full bodied palate, with its silky tannins and spicy, ripe, dark red fruits is however, the star of the show. One hour of decanting opened this up quite nicely. At 18, this is starting to show its stuff. It should be close to peak with 3-5 more years of aging, where it will deliver the goods for at least another 20 more years. Tasted Feb 2018

This starts off with fabulous aromas of milk chocolate, plums and subtle spices. Full bodied, with super silky tannins and a long, long finish. Tight but just starting to open up. I’m loving the fresh acidity at the end. Needs another five to six years bottle age.

Tasted at the Trotanoy vertical in Hong Kong, the 2000 Trotanoy seems to be improving with age. It has an outstanding bouquet with far more fruit intensity than I anticipated: mulberry, blackberry, briary, broom and white pepper all mingling together with superb delineation. The palate displays exquisite balance, fresh and focused with a clean and precise finish that is only just beginning to show what it can do. Like so many millennial Bordeaux it has matured at its own pace, however, on this showing it seems determined to reward those with the greatest patience. Tasted November 2016.

95% merlot and 5% cabernet franc): Deep, saturated red. Highly perfumed nose of black plum, lavender, cedar, chocolate and Oriental spices. Enters sweet, round and broad, then turns a bit tougher, with hints of earth and game complicating bright cassis and mocha flavors. There is an amazing freshness to this wine that helps extend the fruit flavors at the back, and the finish is long and smooth. In this vintage's early days it was tightly wound and austere, but it's now beginning to slowly blossom and become more expressive. This is often the case with Trotanoy, which usually needs a good ten years from the vintage to really come into its own. A very successful 2000.

This beautiful wine turned out slightly better than I had predicted seven years ago. Abundant sweet aromas of black cherries, damp earth, forest floor, and cocoa are both ripe and enticing. The wine is full-bodied, dense, and just beginning to shed its tannins. Generous and opulent, it is beginning to enter its plateau of full maturity, where it should remain for another 15-20 years.

Medium ruby. Raspberry, mocha, tobacco, dark chocolate, spicy oak and a mineral pungency on the expressive but youthful nose. Sweet, classy and penetrating, with terrific spine and lively acidity giving the wine a captivating lightness. But this very young wine has considerable underlying flesh and a very long, fine, gripping finish.