2007 Château Bellevue-Mondotte

Saturated ruby. Very dark aromas of black fruits, violet, licorice and bitter chocolate, plus a sexy oak note of hickory smoke. Large-scaled, thick and sweet, with outrageous breadth for the year. Finishes with mouthcoating tannins and palate-staining black fruits. For all its sweetness and size, this wine manages to maintain impressive verve. (I should note that an earlier sample was at least as rich but more porty and roasted, with a distinctly unrefined character. Obviously, my score is for the better sample.)

Very little wine is produced (about 400 cases) from this tiny 5-acre vineyard, but it is always among the most concentrated and richest of Bordeaux. The inky/purple-colored 2007 offers sweet cassis fruit notes interwoven with notions of graphite, chalk dust, and toast. Full-bodied with terrific purity and intensity (14.5% alcohol), it should drink well for 20+ years.

Bright ruby. Musky aromas of black raspberry and licorice. Chewy and supple but a bit unforthcoming, even stunted, today, and not yet showing much definition to its highly concentrated flavors of black fruits, licorice and minerals. Hard to taste now but there's excellent sweetness and solid underlying structure here. This wine always needs time, notes Gerard Perse, who told me that the crop level here in 2007 was just 25 hectoliters per hectare.