Ausone 2007 (750ML)

95 WE / 94 RP / 94 WA / 94 WCI / 17++ JR

While there is certainly plenty of wood here, the wine has weight and impressive concentration for the year. The tannins are still brooding away, giving a dark firm character to the wine. Blackberry fruits and acidity are there, but still well buried in the tannins. — Roger Voss, Wine Enthusiast

The 2007 Ausone is a candidate for one of the wines of the vintage, rivaling Pavie and Lafite Rothschild. Its deep ruby/purple hue is accompanied by a beautiful nose of spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, and crushed rocks. The wine is dense, medium to full-bodied, and pure with sweet tannin as well as a surprisingly evolved, forward style. It is one of the few Ausones I have tasted that can be drunk with great pleasure at this stage, yet it promises to evolve for two decades. Robert Parker

Tasted blind at the 2007 Bordeaux horizontal in Southwold. There seems to be just a little Cabernet in this wine, wonderful lift and sense of clarity, airy even, dark cherries, boysenberry and an odd scent of lime cordial that vanishes after five minutes in the glass.  The palate is citrus-fresh on the entry, very pretty and feminine with filigree tannins and touches of fresh apricot and white peach interlacing the cassis and dark cherry fruit towards the finish. Tasted January 2011. Neal Martin

Charming, polished, fresh, elegant and offering pleasure today, the sweet black cherries, black raspberries and plums and complicated with earthy, floral notes. Unlike most vintages of Ausone, this is not a wine that requires more aging.-Jeff Leve, Wine Cellar Insider

55% Cabernet Franc, 45% Merlot. Heady. Rich and heady. A bit angular, not exaggerated but in this damp vintage not as mellifluous as Cheval’s gravel-based wine. Some green notes, a little awkward. Not Ausone’s finest hour, I feel. A bit chewy and green. We have to take the development on trust really, although I know the wine provoked greater enthusiasm a couple of days before.-Jancis Robinson