Both of the following wines are a blend of Barossa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (60%), Merlot, Shiraz, and Malbec, the main difference being that the '96 has more Merlot and less Malbec (20 v 10%) while the ratio is about opposite in the '97 (11 v 17%).

1996 Peter Lehmann Mentor -- inky and dense upon opening, and showing very little aromatics for the first 15 minutes or so, this began to open up nicely after half an hour in a decanter; after an hour, the nose was big and powerful, lots of dark fruit, cedar, and tobacco notes; pretty powerful in the mouth (my wife called this "a big boy's wine"), tons of fruit and spice swirling around, featuring plum, blackberry, currant, anise, cigarbox, sandalwood, and hints of sweet vanilla, with-- to my taste-- just the perfect level of acidity to carry all this ripe fruit perfectly; very long finish, but unfortunately marred by extremely rough, coarse tannins that give it a kind of gritty sensation. The fruit outlasts the tannins on the finish, but detract from the overall enjoyment of the wine; great with a mouthful of ribeye, but not so great on its own. Still, this wine is youthful and tannins do soften, so the future looks good. Today, about 90-1 pts., with a clear upside.

1997 Peter Lehmann Mentor -- visually no different from the '96, showing more aromas out of the bottle, but they expanded over half an hour with a nose of raspberry, vanilla, and tobacco; in the mouth, quite a bit lighter in body, with raspberry, plum, sage, tobacco, and vanilla flavors that coat the mouth and fill the mid-palate nicely; a long, soft berry-dominated finish that fades out gracefully over more than half a minute. Makes you want to put more of it in your mouth every time you swallow. Probably close to its peak, this is one of those elusive wines that don't stomp on your palate, but politely suggest their power on the finish. Kinda classy; hard not to like it a lot. App. 91-2 pts.

Hadn't had one of these in about a year until a few days ago:

1997 Peter Lehmann Mentor -- not much faded in colour since last year, it's now in about perfect balance. Big berry, vanilla, icing sugar nose; lots of berry, plum, tobacco flavours, a bit lighter than I remembered, but nice long fruit-driven finish. About 91-2 pts.

No hurry to drink these up, but they're clearly in their moment now.

Seaq,

Agree with you about the tannins on the 96, but given time, hopefully they will resolve and the wine will be something special.