($122-$140) Good medium ruby. Quintessential Pomerol nose combines roasted black raspberry, coffee liqueur and chocolate. Suave, sweet and voluptuous, with a wonderfully pliant texture and a flamboyantly expressive personality. This sent a shiver of pleasure up my spine. Notes of chocolate liqueur and game, with a complicating mineral component. Hugely rich, sexy wine whose tannins coat the teeth. Silkier and more open today than the 2000, which is a more powerful but more roasted wine, with distinct suggestions of surmaturite and considerable tannic clout.

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Still quite blue-looking. Very youthful and introvert on the nose but wonderfully succulent on the palate. Manages the trick of being both fleshy and fine boned. Pretty smart. But worth keeping awhile.

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A brilliant effort (one of the vintage's most substantial wines), proprietor Denis Durantou has turned in a tour de force in 2001. Sadly, there are only 1,500 cases of this 85% Merlot / 15% Cabernet Franc blend (from vines averaging 40 years of age). This beauty boasts a dense ruby/purple color as well as a glorious nose of red and black fruits, flowers, sweet oak, and hints of licorice as well as truffles. Opulent, medium to full-bodied, concentrated, tannic, and persistent on the palate (the finish lasts 40 seconds), give it 2-4 years of cellaring, and drink it between 2007-2020.

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Wild and exotic on the nose, with blackberry, meat and spice. Medium- to full-bodied, with super well-integrated tannins and a lovely balance of fruit and spice on the finish. This is really a beauty'a seductive young wine. Just a few notches below the 2000. 1,330 cases made.

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