The 2022 Château Tertre Rôteboeuf is gorgeous, and it has more than a passing resemblance to the 2010 (or is it the 2009?). Classic notes of black raspberries, sweet cassis, white chocolate, leafy tobacco, and spicy wood all shine here, and it's full-bodied on the palate, with flawless overall balance, ultra-fine tannins, and a finish that makes you salivate and keeps you coming back to the glass. It has the fruit to offer remarkable pleasure even today yet deserves 8-10 years of bottle age and will pretty much blow you away over the following 20-30 years.

The 2022 Tertre-Rôteboeuf is unequivocally the most backward on the nose and, despite aeration, it gives little away. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, a keen line of acidity, quite creamy and lactic in style. Dark chocolate manifests towards the finish. Lavish new oak here, plush, but this bottle is just a bit cloying, hence my question mark. Tasted blind at the Southwold tasting in London.

Both the suavest and the most exotic cuvée in the Mitjaville portfolio, the 2022 Le Tertre Roteboeuf is a full-bodied, supple and fleshy wine evocative of blackberries, espresso roast, rose petals, spices and smoked meats. Concentrated, refined and seamless, it concludes with a long, aromatic finish. Readers might think of it as a cousin of the 2009 vintage, with its sweetness of fruit but rather ethereal, harmonious profile, which stands in contrast with more overtly powerful years, such as 2020 or 2010.