If your thing is ripe, red fruits poured over rocks, stones and salty minerals with the weight and density of motor oil, a perfume that packs flowers, wet earth, truffle, herbs, oceanic brine and a basket of red and black pit fruits, with a finish that coats your palate, teeth and gums for over 60 seconds, this could be your wine. Still young, but with a long future, and by long, I mean 60-80 years, this is what great wine is all about. If you are planning on popping a bottle, give it 2-3 hours in the decanter, else wait a decade for it to evolve, soften and add even more complexity.

Tasted blind at Bordeaux Index’s 2000 tasting in London. The Ausone 2000 has a very pure nose with brambly black fruit, cassis, plum, touch of tar and liquorices and...yes...a hint of white chocolate. Wonderful definition and opulence, blossoming in the glass and developing a savoury touch from some ripe Cabernet Franc. The palate is full-bodied with lithe tannins, very fine and more feminine than its peers. Very well poised with red-berried fruit, raspberry, wild strawberry and a touch of glycerine. This is very polished and utterly sensuous, with the precision on the finish as good as any you will find in this vintage. Superb. Drink now-2040.

98+ Two bottles were badly corked, which is certainly a scary situation for a wine where only 1,000 or so cases were produced. However, a third bottle was magical and just short of perfection. Its saturated purple color was followed by a surprisingly more evolved and open wine than I had written in my tasting note in 2003, where I predicted maturity between 2020 and 2075. This wine displays wonderful, sweet tannin and a big, sweet kiss of truffle, crushed rock, blueberry, blackberry, and licorice. Extremely rich, full-bodied, with astonishing power, precision, and delicacy, this is a sumptuous wine that should age well for 50-60 years, but in the case of the one bottle out of three that was not corked, it seemed far more evolved and forward than I suggested in my write-up in 2003. - Robert Parker

Forget all those garage wines forget the upstarts of Saint-Emilion. When you want real class you have to turn to Ausone. What a wine - magnificently dense and opaque hugely rich and sensual. Yet it doesn't seem in the least decadent - for deep inside the wine is a huge backbone of ripe tannins. Keep for at least 10 years.

The 2000 Ausone was tasted on no less than three occasions during March 2015, once with Pauline and Alain Vauthier. It is a great millennial Saint-Émilion with intense blackberry and cassis fruit laced with cedar and violets. Less opulent than it showed in its youth, it is a perfect marriage of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The palate even at 15 years of age is quite backward and you could argue, rather glossy. Yet there is poise here that lingers in the mouth with a brilliant mineral-driven finish. It is an Ausone that will give five or six decades of drinking pleasure but will certainly repay the more patient. Tasted at a private dinner in Bordeaux. -- Neal Martin

This is like a perfectly cut piece of silk fabric. Every angle is just right every texture great. Fabulous aromas of tobacco mineral and cool berry fruit. Full-bodied with loads of silky tannins and a length that goes on and on. Very racy. Very sexy. Best wine I have ever had from this estate. Best after 2010. -JS

(18/20) Much more evolved-looking than the Cheval 2000. Less opulent nose than the Cheval served alongside. Lightly pruney and dusty, dried fruit. Much more demanding and 'modern' than the Cheval. Thick and demanding with a very dry finish. Not entirely comfortable as a tasting experience though certainly impressive. Probably just needs a bit more time but I would not counsel opening a botte of Ausone 2000 yet...