Fullish ruby.  Sauvage and a touch medicinal.  A lusty, very pure Rugiens fruit: mentholated cherry, herb, earth, raw meat.  It tilts towards the resolute and architectural – lots of tangy (but not edgy) ’96 acidity and fine-grained, sandy tannin.  But it’s not laid low by its structure: the quality of Rugiens is apparent.  You can sense the distinction and breeding underneath the big-bones and still unresolved austerity.  Racy and articulate at the end.  Time will taper this further.  Thirty-year Rugiens easily.  2016 – 2030+.