Barrel Sample. The pure black currant fruits of this exemplary wine are matched with bright acidity and ripe, solid tannins. It is impressively rich and will certainly age well.

The 2018 Pavie Macquin is voluptuous and exotic to the core. Super-ripe black cherry, plum, mocha, espresso, licorice and chocolate all race out of the glass. Pliant, supple and silky, the 2018 is lights out. This is an especially heady, flamboyant style, so readers should be prepared for a pretty intense Saint-Émilion. That said, the new oak has now integrated quite nicely.

The plum, boysenberry and raspberry fruit is very aromatic, carrying a glossy sheen as this glides along, picking up subtle anise, alder and tobacco notes slowly but steadily through the finish. A graphite edge is buried deep. This should age gracefully thanks to the purity and balance. Best from 2022 through 2032.

Coming from two parcels planted on the upper plateau, with a terroir like Troplong-Mondot, the 2014 Château Pavie Macquin is more backward than the 2015 (which is expected) and offers a masculine, firm, edgy style as well as lots of black cherry and currant fruits intermixed with smoked herbs, scorched earth and lots of minerality. This medium to full-bodied 2014 has good concentration, high, integrated acidity, and an age-worthy, classic style that needs 5-6 years of bottle age. It should have three decades of overall longevity.

This is a stunning and exuberant wine that drinks with beautiful intensity and personality. The 2015 Bolgheri Rosso Le Serre Nuove dell'Ornellaia is made with fruit from the estate's young vines. Fruit from the older vines is instead directed to the top-shelf expressions. If this wine is any indication of what we can expect from the next vintage of Ornellaia to hit the market, we are in for a very special treat. This is a complete and richly concentrated expression that drinks with seamless intensity. It pits power against elegance with confidence and grace.