95 Points James Suckling: A wine with beautiful strawberry and chocolate with hints of pie crust. It’s full-bodied with super integrated tannins and a long, long finish. Needs at least four to five years to really come together but so wonderful. Not the amazing 2009 but clearly outstanding.

 94 Points Wine Spectator: This delivers a slightly chewy-edged feel, with charcoal and roasted alder hints holding sway over the core of steeped damson plum, black currant and anise notes. Shows grip through the finish, but stays long, featuring a lovely backdrop of tar and warm stone.

 Winemaker Notes: The Chateau XXXXXXXXX is a dark color with a fine crimson tint. The wine offers notes of ripe fruit, mocha and vanilla along with powerful yet harmonious and smooth tannins.

 The above was received from a good friend and fine wine merchant, describing a wine on offer which I will not name as that is not the point.   The point is this:  as I understand it, this fine wine (at a mere $125 per bottle) tastes like charcoal, roasted alder, steeped damson plums, black currant, anise, tar, warm stone, strawberry, chocolate, pie crust, ripe fruit, mocha and vanilla.  What with its dark color, smooth tannins, grip, strength, chewy edge, length of finish, well – I for one cannot wait to taste it in at least four or five years when it is ready to drink.  I do hope to live that long, and I hope you the reader live that long also, because I am counting on YOU to buy a bottle of this stuff and lay it away in my wine cellar and drink it with me some day.  Because I ain’t paying $125 for a bottle of anything other than the Elixir of Youth….

 Final query: if this wine is at least four or five years from coming together (and given the description of flavors I can see that the wine needs mucho coming together), how do they know it is so great today?  I think I have a lot to learn, but I will learn about wine while laughing all the way.