2011 Mas de Daumas Gassac

80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% 'rare varieties'. Museum release. Dry, soft, restrained fruit. Surprisingly un-Cabernet; instead, it's more like the Grenache of the south, with quite a lot of heat and ripeness. Reasonably straightforward flavour character. Liquorice finish. Has the fruit core to age further, although I don't know if more complexity will come with it. (RH)

80% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% ‘rare varieties’. Lots of sediment in the bottle, but the wine is still surprisingly dark. Smells of prunes, cinnamon bark, bay leaves pressed between the pages of an old book, honeybush tea leaves, Assam malt tea, rose hips, coffee, dried cranberries. Cigar smoke. So fragrant! So much here. A wine that is like a book of haiku: every page turned is another moment of delight, a tiny snapshot of beauty, something to make you think, to wonder. (TC)

The 2011 Rouge is one of the more extroverted wines in this range. Succulent dark cherry, plum, mocha, licorice and rose petal all meld together in the glass. Curvy and generous, the 2018 offers tons of immediacy to match its exotic, totally beguiling personality. It is at the beginning of a long drinking window.