2000 Ausone

The Ausone 2000 has a very pure nose with brambly black fruit, cassis, plum, touch of tar and liquorices and... yes... a hint of white chocolate. Wonderful definition and opulence, blossoming in the glass and developing a savoury touch from some ripe Cabernet Franc. The palate is full-bodied with lithe tannins, very fine and more feminine than its peers. Very well poised with red-berried fruit, raspberry, wild strawberry and touch of glycerine. This is very polished and utterly sensuous, with the precision on the finish as good as any you will find in this vintage. Superb.

The 2000 Ausone was tasted on no less than three occasions during March 2015, once with Pauline and Alain Vauthier. It is a great millennial Saint-Émilion with intense blackberry and cassis fruit laced with cedar and violets. Less opulent than it showed in its youth, it is a perfect marriage of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The palate even at 15 years of age is quite backward and you could argue, rather glossy. Yet there is poise here that lingers in the mouth with a brilliant mineral-driven finish. It is an Ausone that will give five or six decades of drinking pleasure but will certainly repay the more patient. Tasted at a private dinner in Bordeaux. (NM)

Two bottles were badly corked, which is certainly a scary situation for a wine where only 1,000 or so cases were produced. However, a third bottle was magical and just short of perfection. Its saturated purple color was followed by a surprisingly more evolved and open wine than I had written in my tasting note in 2003, where I predicted maturity between 2020 and 2075. This wine displays wonderful, sweet tannin and a big, sweet kiss of truffle, crushed rock, blueberry, blackberry, and licorice. Extremely rich, full-bodied, with astonishing power, precision, and delicacy, this is a sumptuous wine that should age well for 50-60 years, but in the case of the one bottle out of three that was not corked, it seemed far more evolved and forward than I suggested in my write-up in 2003.