Clean lemon and lime. There follows a rich, more-than-exotic nose and you can sense the ripeness, which Perrières can cope with. A massive wine, with grand cru intensity, which also shows how and why it can cope with the extra degree. Some fresh and ripe pear notes, a wine of volume and majesty at the limit of ripeness. Very distinguished for the long term.

A cool and reserved but beautifully well-layered nose combines notes of mineral reduction and white flowers with those of citrus peel and spiced apple. The racy and again almost painfully intense flavours brim with both minerality and sappy dry extract while delivering superb punch on the compact, serious and built-to-age finale. This attractively classy effort is like rolling small pebbles around in the mouth and is a wine that should age gracefully for a decade or more.