What I love about this wine is the calm orderliness of its aromatic profile, and the exceptionally sophisticated quality of its allusion repertoire. Gone are the chocolate and sweet plums which are the default position for great St Emilion Merlot; instead there is a misty lens of sandalwood over perfectly defined, dew-fresh red fruits of all sorts - cherry, damson, sloe. The palate is the very definition of haute couture winemaking: soft, silky tannins; a perfumed, bright-eyed intensity; a pencilly classicism. There is less width and weight here than in either 1998 or 2000, but more poise.