Powerfully structured wine, focussing the sweet fruit through a funnel of dense tannins. The wine has great weight, intensity, the juicy acidity adding the essential freshness.

Ripe and very juicy, but with lovely seamless texture to the plum, cassis and violet notes. The long, racy finish is really persistent.

Readers looking for a masculine, powerful, concentrated, broodingly backward style of Margaux need look no further than the 2010 Kirwan. A dense opaque purple color is accompanied by notes of graphite, licorice, blackberry and cassis. Intense and concentrated with good acidity as well as a boatload of tannin, it should be forgotten for 7-10 years and drunk over the following three decades.