It was during lockdown that I really started to discover how well the 2007 vintage is tasting right now, and it was to celebrate a post-lockdown reunion with old friends that I first opened this wine in 2020. Tasting it again a few months later and it still jumps out of the glass with its seductively rich texture and spiralling aromatics, clearly showing how the best estates casually step over vintage limitations. The texture is strikingly rich, and as it opens in the glass with blackberry, cassis, slate and notes of chocolate shavings opening up even further. This has a long life ahead.

The wood element is important here, but it is based on a firm Cabernet Sauvignon structure, dry but rich tannins. The wine is a great success for the vintage, giving sweetness, ripe fruit that only shows light extraction, and dark plum and berry flavors. The feeling is of polished fruit and wood, rounded but always dense.

This Mouton is starting to show the complexity of an aged Mouton with truffles, dried strawberries and cherries. Full body, firm tannins and flavors of sous bois and mushrooms, which make this really quite sexy. Better in a year or two but so complete now.

A prime example of a lesser year hitting its stride, as 2007 was markedly cooler than normal after June. This is very expressive, with perfumy black tea, singed alder and smoldering tobacco notes leading the way for a core of gently mulled plum and black cherry fruit. Shows pretty cedar accents through the finish, with a menthol backdrop.—Non-blind Mouton-Rothschild vertical (March 2017). Drink now through 2031. - JM

Tasted at BI Wine & Spirits' 10-Years-On tasting, the 2007 Mouton-Rothschild offers classic tobacco and cigar box aromas on the nose, very well defined with black fruit unfolding in the glass. Again, like the bottle at the vertical in May last year, there is an element of Pessac-Léognan on the nose, just a hint of warm gravel. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, quite compact with a foursquare finish of blackberry, tobacco and a pinch of white pepper. Sure, it is shorter than most recent vintages, but I can see this aging with style. Tasted February 2017. - Neal Martin