It smells really rich and woody with a dark cherry scent. The palate is surprisingly herbal and not as sweet as expected with a strong woodiness with cocoa powder and a redder ripe cherry flavor than expected. A fair amount of anise and some violet stand out, as does a bit of mint. It's fairly spicy, but not harsh. The long finish has a lot of cocoa with a hint of mint and some remnants of cherry. It's thoroughly drinkable and decently complex. A big success. It's packed full of flavor but it isn't as smooth and subtle or as quite as sweet as Delord 25. I prefer Delord 25, but not by a tremendous margin. This is definitely a 17 and it might be as high as a 19, but it probabaly isn't a 20. I think I'm going to land on 18 for now. Side by side, Delord 25 is a bit better, but I do love the variety of flavor here and bet is taste even more complexity with a fuller glass. Sadly, I only got to have about 7ml of a 30ml sample that had evaporated down to 21ml. Damn, it's really good though. Maybe I'll bump it to a 19. I think it deserves a 19.