2016 Clos de la Roche
Buying options
Tasting notes
The 2016 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru is missing some intensity on the nose but it is endowed with pretty red berry fruit, briary and light sous-bois aromas. Perhaps just a little stem addition at play here? The palate is medium-bodied with gritty, quite firm tannin. The acidity is well judged and lends freshness, although unusually for this Grand Cru, I find the finish brittle in texture at the moment. Quite candied, more so with aeration. Give it another three or four years. Tasted blind at the 2016 Burgfest tasting.
Critic scores
Average Score
Allen Meadows, Burghound
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
The 2016 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru was picked on 28 September, includes 30% whole bunch fruit and matured in 40% new oak. It has a clean, fresh and vibrant bouquet with red cherry, cranberry leaf and fine mineralité coming through with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp tannin, impressive depth, quite saline in the mouth with a pinch of spice/black pepper toward the finish. This is a well-crafted Clos de la Roche that should age with style.
Pure and balanced but doesn’t have the instant wow factor that you might expect. Tight, fine tannin. Dark cherry fruit with lots of density but not much complexity, it seems to me. (RH)
A highly complex and much earthier and sauvage-inflected nose offers up notes of cassis and blue pinot fruit that is nuanced by hints of smoke and spice. There is outstanding richness to the powerful, concentrated and overtly muscular broad-shouldered flavors that possess strikingly impressive persistence on the austere, backward and very firmly structured finish. This brooding but most promising effort is quite compact at present and will need plenty of time to flesh out.
About the producer
Although the Bichot family settled in the region in 1350, Albert Bichot was founded in 1831 by Bernard Bichot. Today the producer is one of Burgundy’s most respected, making wines from both its own vineyards and with purchased fruit.