The 2008 Ducru-Beaucaillou smells quite Cabernet-Sauvignon with an appealing bouquet of spices, blackcurrant, black berries, and green bell pepper touches. It has a tense and straight palate with building tannins but perfectly balanced. There is a hint of bell pepper and tobacco on the finish that amplify an impression of freshness on the long, airy finish. Its needs some time (10 years) to chill out. (YC)

Spiced plum on the attack, this is a gourmet, inviting wine with a rich ruby colour, still looking and feeling young at 14 years old. One to dive into, building up layers through the palate of blackcurrant and loganberry fruits laced with sage and rosemary spices, graphite, campfire embers and mint leaf on the finish. Confident, overdelivering in the vintage. Harvest October 2 to 16. Eric and Jacques Boissenot consultants, Virginie Sallette technical director.

The 2008 Ducru-Beaucaillou is one of the top wines of the vintage and a stellar bottle in the making. The wine delivers a truly stunning bouquet, as it soars from the glass in a mélange of cassis, dark berries, French roast, tobacco leaf, a complex base of gravelly soil tones and a deft framing of cedar. On the palate the wine is deep, full and wonderfully suave on the attack, with a sappy core of fruit, ripe, perfectly-integrated tannins and great length and grip on the nascently complex finish. While Ducru has produced exemplary efforts in both 2009 and 2010, make no mistake, the 2008 is the finest of the troika. A great 2008!