Léoville Barton 2007

The 2007 Leoville-Barton is more vigorous and fruit-driven than the Langoa, with gorgeous dark berry fruit, wilted rose petals and orange blossom scents that really blossom in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with a sensual, quite rounded opening that belies the structure of this Leoville Barton, armed with black pepper and cedar towards the long finish. This is a Saint Julien that has always threatened to come good and at ten years of age, and it is beginning to take flight. A couple of cases of this in your cellar and you cannot go wrong. Drink 2017-2032.

This muscular, highly-extracted, structured 2007 reveals a boatload of tannin (unusual for this vintage). The wine's dark ruby/purple color is followed by aromas of cassis, new saddle leather, and forest floor offered in a structured, backward, almost unapproachable format. Give it 2-3 years of cellaring, and if the tannins resolve themselves, it will merit a higher score. It should last for 12-20 years. Drink 2012-2032.

This has a wonderful nose for the vintage, with blackberry, currantand cigar box. Complex and full-bodied, with layers of ripe, polishedtannins and a very long finish. Juicy, yet refined and agile.Best after 2014.

Good ruby-red. Serious, sexy aromas and flavors of black cherry, dark chocolate and camphor. Fat, sweet and suave in the mouth, with enticing firming acidity giving shape to the wine. More stuffing here than shown by its stablemate Langoa today. Finishes minerally, spicy and persistent, with good spine and verve for the year. Very nicely balanced wine, and not at all over-extracted. While Barton expressed the opinion, shared by many of his colleagues in the Medoc, that the merlots "were dull and lacked vivacity," the sample he presented had no shortage of personality.

The fruit on the nose has attractive floral fragrances, red fruits adding freshness whilst the black are richer and sweeter. There is a lot of cassis in evidence on the palate, quite rich and fleshy but firm tannins take over and rather close down the finish. More fruit hides behind and will emerge with time

Intense black-red, restrained but well-expressed concentration of fruit, a little spice and more going on than most other wines, good depth, personality and precision of fruit, good future. Drink 2014-25. 4 stars.