2019 Fleurie Cuvee Tardive

Deep, bright-rimmed ruby. Powerful, mineral-accented red and blue fruit scents, along with suave floral and exotic spice flourishes. Juicy and penetrating on the palate, offering bitter cherry, boysenberry and violet pastille flavors and lavender and black tea notes that build with aeration. Closes with strong, incisive thrust, building tannins and impressive persistence, leaving sappy berry and floral notes behind.

The 2019 Fleurie Cuvée Tardive is especially good and stands out as the finest rendition of this cuvée in recent years. Unfurling in the glass with scents of cherries, warm spices, blood orange, dark chocolate and grilled squab, it's medium to full-bodied, velvety and concentrated, with fine depth at the core and a layered, seamless profile, concluding with a sapid finish. It's a powerful wine but more classically proportioned than its riper 2018 and 2015 counterparts, for example.

Full bottle 1,310 g. You have to wonder in the era of ever-warmer summers whether a late-harvest wine is necessarily better? Transparent garnet and delightfully fresh attack on the nose and, especially, palate. This has taffeta crunchiness and real length in the mouth. With great balance between sweet red fruit flavours and acidity, it really races along. Such pace and lift! It's delightfully easy to drink already but underneath the fruit is lots of fine tannin. (JR)