1995 Château Gruaud Larose, St Julien, Bordeaux

Dark crimson with a little age at the rim. Powerfully scented and spicy – a wine that craves attention. Sweet start, sweet throughout so that it is not one of the subtlest, but it should deliver lots of pleasure. It's just a little chewy on the end, even though the fruit has evolved quite a bit. Very Gruaud.

A dense garnet/ruby/purple color is followed by a wine with a sweet, jammy, black-cherry, Asian spice, soy, and earthy-scented nose. This big, beefy, medium to full-bodied 1995 Gruaud-Larose displays excellent ripeness, plenty of muscle and glycerin, and sweet yet noticeable tannin in the heady, intensely spicy finish. This is a mid-weight, substantial wine that needs 6-7 years to shed its tannin; it should keep for two decades.

Ruby-red with a pale rim. Initially closed nose opens slowly with aeration to offer delicate blackcurrant and mineral aromas complicated by a touch of field herbs. Then richer and deeper on the palate, with flinty blackcurrant, raspberry and herbal flavors carrying nicely through the aftertaste. The chewy, peppery tannins have smoothed out nicely with age. This wine has already developed much more depth and complexity than it showed on release; should it continue to evolve positively, it may yet turn out to be a memorable Gruaud.

Deep, saturated colour. Intensely spicy black raspberry and cassis nose. Dense and thick, and marked by the one-third new oak. Very reserved today but sweet and ripe. There is lots of underlying structure; impressive wine: perhaps more classic than the '94 and packed with material. 1986-like, though it's hard to imagine that this wine could possibly have the depth and intensity of flavour of that masterpiece.