I love the depth and complexity of the nose, which brings you down deeply into the wine, showing blackberry, ink, tar, earth, incense, cloves, and black licorice. Thyme, too. The purity of the fruit, including cassis, is the real thing. This is full-bodied, but remains so fresh and vertical on the palate. The tannins are so fine and integrated, producing a millefeuille-like layering of tannin and cool, blue fruit. Incredible wine. The greatest wine made in China so far. 60% cabernet sauvignon, 19% cabernet franc, 10% merlot, 7% syrah and 4% petit verdot. 26,000 bottles made. Drinkable now, but will be so much better in four or five years.

As ever a wine of impact, and here you get a ton of damson and black cherry fruits, with fragrant and fresh citrus peel and sage alongside earthier smoked cumin spice. Polished, smooth and ripe tannins have plenty of movement even when the wine remains young in structure and feel. Stands on its own, confident and accomplished, though tasting the three new 2018 village site wines alongside it serves to add to an understanding of just how exceptionally unusual Ao Yun is. Just released in March 2022.

Note: In what follows, I offer two tasting notes for the 2018 Ao Yun, the first from tasting the latest vintage release in bottle at the winery in May 2021—before it was released—and the second tasted much closer to sea level in Beijing in December 2021. The consistency in quality across bottles tasted at very different altitudes speaks well for the 2018 Ao Yun's overall quality and future development.- ER