This wine may deserve an outstanding rating. A fine wine, it exhibits a dense ruby/purple color in addition to moderately intense aromas of spice box, licorice, plums, cherries, and toasty oak. Lush, full-bodied, and round, with excellent fruit richness, low acidity, and sweet tannin, it can be drunk now as well as over the next 7-10 years.

Tasted blind at the Valandraud vertical at the property, the 1997 Valandraud has a well-defined bouquet with earthy red berry fruit, iron filing, orange rind and touches of menthol developing with time. The palate is medium-bodied with rather scrawny tannin, fully mature herbaceous fruit with a leafy, rather autumnal finish that does not have immense depth, but at least has sufficient freshness. It actually improved in the glass and yet it never quite delivered that penetration or depth of fruit on the finish. To call it "Valandraud-lite" would be too disparaging, but that is how it comes across after twenty years. Tasted December 2016.

Lots of ripe fruit, with tobacco, cherry and plum character. Medium- to full-bodied, with velvety tannins and a long finish. Shows a surprising degree of harmony. Drink now through 2003. -JS