2019 Cahors Probus

Full bottle 1,338 g. Old-vine wine – made from vines over 100 years old. certified HVE. Hand-picked; vatting time from 20 to 25 days. 12 months in French oak barrels followed by cask selection. Aromatic juniper and box-leaf notes, but as the aromas segue into the palate, they become drenched with cassis. Campfire smokiness, and deep-purple inkiness. A gleaming, shadowed mithril-in-Erebor wine, cavernous with echos of black fruit and mine-shafts of stone. Powerful and magnificent in structure; gritty but not over-extracted or harsh. The concentration and intensity of the wine is reined in beautifully by the purity of the fruit and the built-in bitterness of the long, persistent but integrated finish. (TC)