St-Estèphe 2021 in bottle: Overview plus top-scoring wines

Dark and milk chocolate, raspberries and red cherries on the nose, with a soft vanilla fragrance and some pink floral aspects. Great tension and direction, personality and verve, high acidity but balanced with the tangy red berry fruit – buzzy with energy and focus. Has precision and drive as well as power and concentration, but all with a lovely elegance and sense of style. Classy and classic, a brilliant wine in 2021.

This stands out for its structure, subtle power, balance and finesse. Perfumed and softly sweet on the nose, ripe and concentrated, glorious and inviting. Creamy and chalky at the same time, lovely texture and density with bright and concentrated strawberry and red cherry fruit. Crisp, sweet, salty and sour, a lovely combination of flavours and textures with great drive and an undercurrent of minerality and salty wet stone finish – real St-Estèphe signature.

Gentle cherry blossom fragrance with raspberry, cranberry and red cherry. Floral and super aromatic. Tangy and clean, a lovely crystalline aspect to the palate - nicely lean and straight, touching on austere but this also has an enjoyable creaminess that gives the weight and texture and sustains the wine to a long finish. I love the mineral ending, pure and precise. Really elegantly presented, not trying too hard. Very drinkable.

Gently fleshy and ripe on the palate, this has chew and bounce to the expression with ripe strawberry and blackcurrant with a really enjoyable wet stone and liquorice element. This is a great effort this year, lovely long length and persistence. Juicy, but really juicy - blackcurrant and strawberry with lift. Lovely freshness all the way through. Appealing and easy to recommend.

Fragranced roses, raspberry and vanilla nose. Smooth and supple, a nice juicy core. Clean and clear, good use of oak and extraction. A pleasant and really enjoyable glass of wine with bright red fruits, fine silky tannins and a long mineral finish. Becomes a bit more serious on the second taste, the tannin mass amplifying in the mouth, growing in structure. This is a good example and wil age too. Has some density and character.

Smooth and gently lively, there is nice bite to this, the fruit is there in the background, cool blueberries, cola and liquorice while the tannins give a soft tension and grip. It's well made, clean and precise. Nothing too demonstrative but well made with focus and length if not weight and density.

Juicy and lively, bright and vibrant with a crisp texture to the red berry fruit with creamy sides and a hint of graphite and wet stone underneath. It loses some oomph and impact towards the finish just tapering out but the initial expression was nice and it ends with a cool note. Might need some more time or might just need to be enjoyed in its youth for a light, delicate but fruit-forward style.

Round and almost fleshy, this has a nice filling texture with sweet, sour and sharp fruit - lovely bright and fresh raspberries and strawberries with tangy blueberries and cooling mint and wet stones giving minerality. Still quite a lean wine, streamlined and finessed, not layered or weighty but well presented and easy to enjoy. This will also age as it still feels a little young and tight.

Perfumed and potent on the nose, clearly ripe and concentrated. Smooth and silky, quit lean and streamlined, not so textured more grippy with bite and tang rather than plush and textured. It's direct - not moving form the core, but well defined and feels finessed. Nothing out of place. Great purity, really well executed and lots of enjoy here. Mouthwatering acidity with cool elements as well as soft juicy creaminess, like tasting light strawberry juice. Delicate but enjoyable. Great acidity, easy to like with terroir touches. Tannins stul on show but they'll soften.

Super ripe and perfumed on the nose. Bright, almost searing on the palate then chalky with a crystalline mineral edged finish. Clean and precise, lacks a touch more density on the mid palate, but this is well worked with balance and a long salty finish. Cool blue fruits are lovely as are the licks of menthol, eucalyptus and flint.

Nice menthol fragrance to the nose with some pink flowers, raspberries, aniseed, liquorice and cinnamon. Juicy and fresh, there's lift to this, a good bounce to the profile still with a salty, mineral core that drives in one straight line. Well made with finesse and elegance, structure from the Cabernet with herbal aspects and a fine grained tannins. A good effort.