If you’re seeking purity, elegance and refinement in a fully, mature Bordeaux, look no further. Automatically, you find cherries, flowers, potpourri, truffle and a background note of chocolate. The palate is incredibly pure. Texturally, the wine is focused on its seamless, silky presence with layers of sweet red fruits that linger seamlessly. No decanting needed. This is mature La Conseillante at its best. Drink from 2023-2030.

The only problem that the 1990 Château La Conseillante has faced is that it had to follow up the brilliant 1989. Here, tasted directly against the previous vintage, it seems more youthful in color than the 1989. The nose races out of the blocks, more precocious than I remember and yet never losing focus, offering kirsch, crushed violets and still that subtle marine influence. The palate is medium-bodied with slightly grainy tannin. It offers wonderful black truffle, morels and mulberry fruit, as powerful as the 1989, albeit not quite with the same precision on the finish. It is the purity of the La Conseillante that wins you over time and time again, and I would not hesitate in enjoying this Pomerol over the next decade. It will never quite match the 1989, but hey, don't hold that against this beauty. Tasted January 2016. - Neal Martin