Matured for 36 months in 100% new French oak. Experience tells us that age will soften the blow of many things, the impact of oak included. Here after 12 years, it is still very much central to the wine, however it brings with it a nostalgic affection for the softened fruit, the cigar box and leather spice, and the resinous charry oak. Like a newborn named Brian, this wine was maybe always old like this, but it sits so well with the experience in the glass that it hardly matters. Erin Larkin for James Halliday