Pale to medium ruby with a touch of brick. The La Tache gives very little on the nose to begin with but soon blossoms into the most incredible cherry compote, black truffle, cloves, loam, saucisson and tobacco leaf aromas. The palate shows exemplary structure and concentration, seamlessly knitting very crisp acidity with a firm level of very finely grained tannins and layer upon layer of complex fruit, mineral and game flavours. Very long finish. This wine has many great years left and will generously reward the patient.

Excellent deep red. Higher-pitched, liqueur-like aromas of raspberry, cassis and licorice; subtle and complex. Lush, voluptuous and stuffed with dark fruit flavor. Finishes with dusty, substantial tannins that build in the glass. This wine fabulous fruit is easy to see today, but it, too, wants to shut down.

The 1995 La Tâche Grand Cru is an outstanding wine from a decade when I don't think the Domaine was firing on all cylinders. This echoes the magnum tasted last year with those ebullient red cherries and crushed strawberry scents on the nose. As you might expect from the bottle format, it's a little more open and evolved than the magnum. The palate is beautifully balanced with fine-boned tannins, with a dash of white pepper sprinkled over the millefeuille of red fruit. It's delineated and poised towards the finish, so much so that you almost don't notice its structure. Sublime.

Stylistically, this borrows elements from both the '97 and the '96 as it combines moderate floral notes with most of the spice, soy and hoisin of the '96 plus the densest flavors of any vintage to this point. The mid-palate doesn't have quite the same sap of the '96 and the long, dusty finish offers a hint of chocolate. This too has the potential to be very long lived. Multiple notes with consistent results; in fact, a recent bottle tasted in Burgundy was even better than the bottle in the big La Tâche tasting held in early '03.

The dark ruby-colored La Tache displays a black cherry and super-spicy bouquet with touches of buttery toast from the new oak and a concentrated, enveloping, minerally, red and black fruit-filled, Asian spice-packed personality. Full-bodied, intense, with excellent length, this is certainly the finest La Tache produced since the out-of-this-world 1990. Drink between 2003-2012+. This note is the result of tastings I did in Burgundy between January 7 and January 29. The wine was tasted from cask, not bottle. Pinot Noir, a fragile varietal, reacts poorly to fining, filtration, and careless bottling techniques, I recommend caution when considering buying a red burgundy based on cask samples. I called it as I tasted it, and hope the bottled wine reflects the quality of the samples I was provided. Drc wines are not subjected to any filtration or fining and undergo only one racking. Importer: Wilson-Daniels, St. Helena, CA; tel. (707) 963-9661.