Seems to be at peak. The cork was mostly soaked through, though it came out in one piece, and the wine did not seem to be negatively affected at all. The color was sound; deep purple core with a magenta rim. Not a hint of browning or bricking. The wine looked very young…
Though the nose was through and through mature Bordeaux. Graphite, cedar, and turned soil dominated the nose. Years ago, I spent a summer sharing a room in an 18th century farm house surrounded by tobacco fields dotted by barns drying tobacco leaves, and the smell of this wine has an element of those fields at the end of a hot late August day; pungent green tobacco mixed with the aromas of rich sweet dried herbals. What a memory!
The wine is mature on the palate with earthy and herbaceous flavors. Very little fruit- what remains is dark. There is a hint of green grass-y pyrizines in the background that I rather enjoy. Is that a touch of black pepper I taste? Smoke? Syrah-esque meatiness? Complex, lovely secondary/tertiary flavors and aromas. Long beautiful finish. Soft, gentle, round. Drink this now, you won’t be sorry.