The most tightly wound, compact wine in this vertical tasting was also, paradoxically, the oldest, but that won't surprise readers who know the 1996 Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill. Opening in the glass with notes of iodine, confit orchard fruit, tangerine, smoke and buttered toast, it's medium to full-bodied, layered and tensile, with a seamless, beautifully balanced profile and a classy, somewhat more reserved, intellectual profile than the younger vintages that followed it. This serious but harmonious 1996 will still improve with additional cellaring.

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