2010 Vasse Felix Heytesbury

75% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Petit Verdot, 10% Malbec. 100% French oak for 18 months, 77% new, 23% one to four years old. TA 6.9 g/l, pH 3.45, RS 0.53 g/l. Very bright crimson. Intense macerated red-fruits nose. Very subtle indeed. Beautiful elegance yet spreads all across the palate. Juicy and savoury and very appetising. Still young but wonderfully sprightly and energetic. Quite marked acidity. (JR)

Warm, dry summer, cool autumn, extended ripening period. Ideal weather pattern.  Current release (Jan 2014). Relatively closed on the nose. Dense and dark and dry on palate. Really elegant – it is ripe but the tannins are refined and dry. Dark, coaly (fine-grained and dusty), savoury tension. Long and so much more to come. More meaty as it opens up on the nose – Malbec influence, perhaps. (JH)

Glass-staining ruby. Exotic, oak-spiced aromas of dark berry liqueur, cola, vanilla and licorice, with a bright peppery topnote. Juicy and sweet on entry, then more taut in the mid-palate, offering vibrant black raspberry and bitter cherry flavors and a suggestion of fruitcake. A smoky note comes up on the gently tannic, chewy finish, which lingers on with alluring florality. There's excellent underlying structure here but the lush fruit makes it difficult to notice.