2010 Château Ausone, St Emilion, Bordeaux

The 2010 Ch. Ausone is dark crimson with a bright crimson rim. Very serious nose – so different from the Chapelle! 55% Cabernet Franc, 45% Merlot. Lovely punch and scent on the nose and then real tight impact on the palate. Not the completeness of Pétrus but a very good vintage expression. Some warm berries triumph over terroir but this is sweet then tight and tough.

Extremely youthful. Very drying on the end. Cabernet Franc has dominated since 2005. Very rich and exuberant overall. Vivacious and not too, too dry on the finish. Less exaggerated than some other recent vintages.

The 2010 Ch. Ausone is very sappy and intense, offering racy red licorice, red currant and violet notes, with nice taut acidity and a long, minerally finish. Combines power and austerity, with excellent drive. For those who like backbone in their wines.

The 2010 Ausone struck me as another brilliant, potentially perfect wine, which should come as no shock to people who have been following Vauthiers work over the last decade or more. Backward and intense, this wine offers up notes of crushed chalk/rock minerality interwoven with blueberry, black raspberry and cassis as well as some graphite and vanillin. It is incredibly rich but at the same time precise, fresh and vivacious. This is a super wine, but it will require enormous patience from its potential suitors. Forget it for a decade and drink it over the following 50+ years.

Alain Vauthier’s wines have been so remarkable since he acquired full control of Ausone that readers probably feel I have thrown my critical wits away. However, the proof is in the tasting, and the 2010 Ausone is unquestionably extraordinary. There are 1,500 cases of this beauty, which exhibits an inky/blue/purple color as well as an exotic, seamless bouquet of incense, Asian spices, blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. Full-bodied with a striking liqueur of minerality as well as a magical combination of complexity, substance and nobility, it reveals softer tannins than I expected for this vintage, so perhaps it will be more accessible in its youth than recent Ausone vintages have tended to be. It is another prodigious effort from Vauthier that should be drinkable in 6-8 years and keep for a half century.