Grand Puy Ducasse 2009

The blackcurrant has a green herbal edge and this combined with firm tannins tends to mask the sweetness. The mid palate hollow gives way to some richer flavours on the back palate. Drink 2020-2040.

By the standards of Grand-Puy-Ducasse (which tends to be one of the lighter Pauillacs) this is a powerful wine. In fact, it's almost too powerful , with considerable extraction and tannic depth. The wine is a little top heavy with oak at the moment, but should develop attractively. 10+ years

Black red, smoky and concentrated blackcurrant fruit, rich succulent fruit with a thick velvety texture and quite firm tannins. Drink 2015-25.

Possibly the finest wine yet produced at this estate, the 2009 is even fatter, richer, and more unctuously textured than the 2005 (which I loved). It boasts an opaque purple color, thrilling levels of sweet creme de cassis and blackberries along with hints of underbrush as well as forest floor, silky tannins, full body, and a plush, heady, opulent personality. This stunning wine should drink well for two decades. (Tasted three times.) Drink 2010-2030.Robert Parker added an asterisk to this wine score to signify that it is a wine he considers has the finest potential of all the offerings he has ever tasted from this estate in nearly 32 years of barrel tasting samples in Bordeaux.

Tasted at the UGC. A blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot, this has a rather subdued nose: blackberry, undergrowth, cigar box...very well defined. The palate is not bad at all: certainly an improvement in recent years with better balance and (hoorah!) no sign of greenness. Not an ambitious GPD, but understated and agreeable on the foursquare, tobacco led finish. Tasted March 2010.