2016 Ruchottes Chambertin

The 2016 Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru was also showing very well indeed from bottle, revealing a lovely bouquet of wild berries, spicy forest floor, dark chocolate and wild rose. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and satiny, with an elegantly textural attack, a bright core of fruit and a bright line of animating acidity, concluding with a mineral finish. Having escaped the year's frosts, this was cropped at more normal yields than the Clos Vougeot and Echezeaux, so it's no surprise it is more charming but less concentrated than those two special wines.

(the only cru with normal production in 2016: 39 hectoliters per hectare): Bright, dark red. Inviting ripe scents of cherry, spices and earth; much more relaxed than the Feusselottes. Then quite suave and refined on the palate, offering excellent breadth but no weightiness to its flavors of red cherry, red berries, saline minerality and licorice. Still a bit youthfully imploded but all in finesse. The tannins spread out to dust the palate, with the finishing fruit and mineral flavors stimulating the taste buds. Aged in 70% new oak from four different coopers.