2016 Richebourg
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Tasting notes
The 2016 Richebourg Grand Cru is deep in colour compared to its peers. The bouquet is just stunning: laser-like focus of black cherries, bilberry, crushed stone and iris flowers that blossom with aeration, seeming to gain intensity with every passing moment. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin and perhaps more black than red fruit. Extremely well delineated with wonderful salinity, this begins to fan out on the finish. Then, remembering that it is just a baby, it tapers back in to remind you that it will need 10 to 15 years in the cellar before it reaches full flight. This is a fabulous wine. Tasted blind at the 2016 Burgfest tasting.
Critic scores
Average Score
Neal Martin
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
Bright red with ruby tones. Vibrant aromas of blackberry, blueberry and dark chocolate are lifted by a violet topnote. Utterly suave on entry, conveying outstanding precision and energy to its flavors of black and blue fruits and crushed rock, with a piquant hint of bitter orange marmalade contributing to the overall impression of nobility. Suave, toothdusting tannins are totally supported by fruit and the seamless, palate-saturating finish perfumes the mouth with minerals, violet and Valrhona bitter chocolate, going on for a minute or more. As charismatic as this young Richebourg is today, it's far from the most demonstrative wine in the cellar. It will need at least a decade of bottle aging and should last for at 25 to 30 years in a cool cellar.
The 2016 Richebourg Grand Cru was not touched at all by the frost, so there are the full five barrels this year (sometimes it can be six). It has a majestic bouquet with ample blackberry, raspberry preserve and brown spice scents, later a touch of white flowers and truffle. This is so mercurial in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with fine-grain tannin. This is beautifully focused, tensile and brimming with energy, yet it remains linear, almost aloof right to the finish, a covert sign that it should not be broached for at least a decade like most great Richebourgs. An aristocrat.
About the producer
A benchmark name in Vosne-Romanée, Domaine Jean Grivot is one of Burgundy’s most respected estates. They have an impressive array of vineyards, including plots in Grand Cru Clos de Vougeot, Echezeaux and Richebourg.