With Hart and the Wine Hoes at mine.

At 11 years old, this is an absolute infant of a bottle, and probably still needs a solid 10 more years to get anywhere close to its peak.

In the glass: deep, inky ruby with a large splash of purple.

On the nose: blackcurrant pastille / concentrate, so much sweet oak, with vanilla crème. It’s so sweet, so primary, so intense, with the oak coming across still quite flabby, but still quite gorgeous overall.

On the palate: Jesus. Christ. I know Leoville Barton is known for being a structured wine that needs a lot of age, but this was an explosion of tannins in the mouth. Yes, it was very fine grained. But it was just so overwhelmingly intense, even with 5-6 hours of air in a decanter. Extremely primary concentrated currants on the palate. Long finish, albeit affected by the sheer amount of tannins.

I would not be touch any of my 15s for a long, long, long time. The 2005s are stunning right now though