2013 Château de la Tour Clos de Vougeot Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru

Good dark red with ruby highlights. Deep, brooding aromas of black fruits, minerals and dark chocolate. Lush, sweet and layered, conveying a strong impression of sucrosité , but a rose petal quality gives the wine an unexpected light touch (and it's also bone-dry at under one gram per liter residual sugar, according to François Labet). The wine's richness is nicely leavened by a note of wild herbs and sound acidity. Finishes with plush, broad tannins and lovely lift and length. When I asked Labet when he would drink this wine, he responded: "Tonight." But he added that it will probably close up in bottle.

Tasted blind at Fine & Rare Wines' Clos Vougeot tasting, the 2013 Clos Vougeot Vieilles Vignes Grand Cru from Château de la Tour has a rather dour, uninviting, broody nose with a hint of wet tobacco infusing the slightly smudged red fruit. The palate is medium-bodied and much more vigorous: crisp, quite tensile tannin, some nicely judged, vanillary oak that is neatly interwoven with the red and black fruit, gaining intensity towards the lightly spiced finish; here, the cooperage is a little more evident. The palate is far more engaging than the nose, although bottle age should address that. Perversely I preferred the regular bottling to the Vieilles Vignes, but one supposes that will be addressed with bottle age. Won't it?

Tasted blind. Bright blackish ruby. Heady, gamey nose with quite a bit of development. Real attention-grabber on the palate – more advanced than many. But with admirable concentration of fruit. Lots going on here. (JR)