Chateau Palmer Margaux 2010

While outwardly this wine is generous and opulent with great juicy sweetness, the core is structured and powerful. The wine is concentrated and complex, with dark tannins and a brooding, dense texture. This is a wine with a long-lived future.

This is riveting, with terrific tarry grip coursing underneath layers of smoldering bay leaf, warm plum confiture, freshly brewed espresso, dark cassis and well-steeped black tea. The charcoal and tobacco backdrop is gorgeous and should move forward through the core of fruit over time. Be patient though, as the structure is ironclad. This will really be electric once mature. Best from 2017 through 2040. 8,500 cases made.

Tasted at the Château Palmer vertical in London, the estate team regard the 2010 Château Palmer as their best since the 1983. This showing did nothing to suggest otherwise. It offers stunning precision on the nose: incredibly fresh and vibrant with the same spine-tingling level of mineralité as the 2005. What they both share is a Pauillac-like graphite seam that runs from start to finish. Like the 2005, there is a beguiling symmetry here, more focused and linear than the sumptuous 2009, yet with sensational length that makes you wonder what on Earth it will taste like in another 10-15 years. I would keep this in your cellar for another decade at least and it may well merit a higher score down the line. Tasted May 2015.