Lead pencil and tobacco with licorice and currants. Full and super refined with a currants and light spice character. Open and refined and delicious bottle already.

The 2008 Duhart-Milon has always been an impressive wine. Here it has a very intense, backward, graphite and cedar-scented bouquet that just seems to grow in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine grain tannin, crisp acidity, brisk blackberry and raspberry fruit laced with graphite and tobacco notes towards the austere finish. I keep ratcheting up my score as it seems to find a new facet with each swirl of the glass. Superb.

A magnificent sleeper of the vintage, the 2008 Duhart Milon is the shrewd consumer’s wine to purchase by the case as prices do not yet reflect its qualitative resurgence. Composed of 73% Cabernet Sauvignon and 27% Merlot that came in at 13.09% alcohol, it is a surprisingly intense effort displaying a marvelous texture, plenty of black currant, licorice, unsmoked cigar tobacco and earthy characteristics, a full-bodied mouthfeel and stunning purity as well as density. Enjoy this top-notch 2008 over the next 20-25 years.

With it cellars in a back street of Pauillac, this wine is often overlooked. But with the same winemaking team as Lafite, it represents a serious wine, solid, chunky, containing delicious fruit. The wood is noticeable at present, but will certainly mingle effortlessly in a few years.