How can sublime elegance and sheer over-the-top opulence harmonize like this? In a word, BREEDING! While there are occasional whiffs of oak and vintage port in this astonishing thing, it remains absolutely smooth and harmonious, and nothing like the 1995 did at this early stage, when it made Bronte's Heathcliff look cultured and polished. This wine just grows and glows. As it does, wave after wave of its many components rise gently and fall again. Shoepolish, boiled beetroot, mocha, peas poached in dry red with cloves, strawberries in dark chocolate, sweet berries of myriad hue, the essence of all things black; all this gradually comes and goes, as if conjured by a parfumier rather than hammered by a smith.