(aged in about 40% new oak, a bit less than in recent vintages): Medium red with modest saturation. Aromas of black raspberry, leather and earth are less pristine than those of today's wines. Creamy-sweet and spicy in the mouth, with a slightly high-toned quality to its fat flavors of red berries, red cherry, underbrush and leather. Can't match the punch of today's Hudelot-Noëllat wines but finishes spicy and very long, with a suggestion of rusticity and slightly edgy tannins that eventually turn a bit dry. Charles van Canneyt, who did not begin vinifying until 2009, following the retirement of his grandfather Alain Hudelot-Noëllat the previous year, noted that the estate's grapes were totally destemmed back in '99, then crushed and pumped back into cuves , an approach that he said could extract bitter tannins if the seeds were green.