($650-$750) Full ruby. Black raspberry, mocha, minerals, graphite and nutty oak on the superripe nose. Extravagantly rich and sweet in the mouth without coming off as heavy. This boasts extraordinary fruit intensity and verve (it's hard to imagine cabernet franc better than this), and finishes with great palate-staining persistence. But this powerfully tannic wine may already be starting to shut down in the bottle. Like the 2005, it will need a decade of aging at a minimum, and possibly a lot longer.

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So deep a purple it is almost black - in fact the colour lines the glass as young vintage port does. Very very rich, broad, spicy nose. Some exotic notes of fruit that it almost burnt but there is a remarkable freshness here too. Meaty depth. On the palate it is somehow absolutely not sweet but very intense, youthful and taut - all reined in and the opposite of the regulation right bank flab in this vintage. Dry finish with fine grained tannins. Classic - very serious wine. Not especially low yields apparently for Ausone: 29 hl/ha. 14 deg alcohol. One of the standouts of the vintage - certainly on this side of the Gironde.

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The 2003 Ausone is off the charts in terms of richness. While I gave a 3-digit score to the 2000, I think this profoundly concentrated wine may be even more sublime and exotic. Its inky/blue/purple color is followed by an extraordinary perfume of flowers, crushed rocks, sweet raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, and God knows what else. The impression is one of extraordinary richness and purity, and a multilayered texture yet a surreal lightness as well as laser-like precision. This exquisite offering must be tasted to be believed. Incredibly young, it will undoubtedly close down over the next few years, re-emerging after 15-20 years. It should last for 70-100 years. It is a wine for anthology!

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Loads of blackberry, plum and strawberry. Intense fruit. Full-bodied, with velvety tannins and layers of everything. Wonderful balance and refinement. Closed up already. Very serious wine. 1,375 cases made.

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Another opportunity to taste an immortal wine. This one was brought to a special 2 bottle Ausone tasting by the wine maker himself, Philippe Baillarguet, to a restaurant in St. Emilion. The bottle was actually opened a day or two prior to this tasting, so it was a chateau bottle shared prior to being tasted today. And it was as I remember tasting the only other sample nearly a year ago. Dark as night, indescribably beautiful aromas, textures of silk that you sense immediately, seemingly endless length and beautiful structure. There is no "2003 heat wave" effect on this chateau, this is simply one of the finest young wines I can ever hope to taste.