2015 Cheval Blanc

The 2015 Cheval Blanc is sublime on the nose with red fruit, sandalwood, touches of tobacco and dried flowers. The oak is seamlessly integrated and very well focused. The palate is fine-boned, fresh and tensile, with a keen line of acidity, real depth and insistent grip suggesting that this will age with panache. Serious and absorbing from start to finish, this is one of the wines of the vintage. Tasted blind at the 2015 Bordeaux Ten-Year-On tasting at Farr Vintners.

This has depths that steal up on you, clinging on through the palate, dark fruit expression, cassis bud, blackcurrant puree, raspberry leaf and mandarin peel freshness, nuanced and gorgeous and hard to argue with. All the plots but two made it into the main wine in this vintage. 100% new oak, Pierre Lurton director. As an aside, it's wonderful tasting Cheval and Ausone in 2015, as both deliver such a clear imprint of their different locations in St Emilion, and both are exceptional wines.

Signature smoke on the nose, but with broader, more nuanced fruit than the 2016. There's an almost leafy bitterness here, and a touch of minty character. Dry, meaty finish. Just a touch of heat from alcohol. The chewiness is starting to relax, making this drinkable now, in structure if not yet in complexity. (RH)