Much more structured, muscular, tannic and intense is the 2013 Quella, which exhibits blackberry notes, licorice, some truffle, graphite and damp earth, huge fruit, a muscular, full-bodied mouthfeel, and a long, moderately tannic finish. Forget it for a few years and drink it over the following 25-30+ years.

The 2013 Quella is a powerhouse. Graphite, smoke, game, tobacco, incense and licorice, along with beams of imposing tannin, give the Quella its intense, brooding personality. Readers will have to be especially patient here, as the tannins are forbidding. The 2013 is a fabulous Quella.

Black cherry, raspberry, herbs and coniferous forest floor marry in the Quella's bouquet, followed by a wine of real energy on the palate, with a vibrant core of acidity and elgeant filigree tannins. The Quella derives from a site not far from Melbury, but poor, well-drained volcanic soils yield a very different wine.

Deep red-ruby. Very ripe aromas of blackberry, cassis, violet, graphite and crushed rock. High-pitched and distinctly black in fruit character on the palate but very closed in on itself today, even a bit lean, showing an element of minty reserve. This brooding, firmly tannic, structured wine is less giving than the Melbury '13, with its tannins coming across as dustier. And yet it possesses lovely aromatic lift from the sand in its soil and an ethereal quality and tension from the river cobble.