2005 Château Lassègue

Deep ruby-red. Musky, very ripe aromas of roasted dark fruits, beefsteak tomato and maple syrup. Then almost surprisingly bright in the middle (this actually has a relatively low pH of 3.55 and high total acidity), with powerful chocolatey fruit and a strong tannic backbone. In fact, today the wine's big, sandy tannins cut off the fruit. Winemaker Seillan predicts that this extremely young wine will age for 50 years; it will certainly require six or eight of them to become more approachable. But subsequent vintages are more suave.

Saturated ruby. Superrich aromas of blackberry, flowers and toasty oak, along with some almost porty black cherry and chocolate notes. Fat, chewy and very deep, but with excellent vinosity framing the black cherry and spicy oak flavors. Finishes very sweet and long, with noble, dusty, fine-grained tannins. I love the sugar/acid balance here.

(a blend of 50% merlot, 45% cabernet franc and 5% cabernet sauvignon, with 8% press wine in the blend) Good saturated ruby. Superripe aromas of roasted cherry and chocolate, with a floral lift. Fat, large-scaled and sweet, with very ripe, broad, palate-coating fruit and considerable dimension. Today this wine is more noteworthy for its rather massive structure than for its delicacy and complexity of flavor, but Seillan appears to be building this wine from the bottom up. Finishes with very ripe fruit and building tannins. This is likely to require at least seven or eight years of cellaring. Most of the cabernet here was harvested between October 6 and 12.