1996 Richebourg

It offers a gorgeously bright medium-to-dark ruby color and extraordinary fragrances of super-ripe plums, cherries, and morel mushrooms. This brooding, powerful, full-bodied, mouth-coating, and refined block-buster is crammed with awesomely sweet black raspberries, cherries, candied strawberries, cassis, stones, and raw meat flavors that last throughout its unending finish. Wow! Bravo! Even though I have a stated policy of only reviewing wines that have completed their malo-lactic fermentations, I decided to make an exception for this spectacular wine. First, its malos were virtually finished, and secondly, readers deserve to know about this wine's sublime qualities. "The most important thing for me is harmony. I don't want hard and tannic wines. Those that are too tannic will never be good." So stated Etienne Grivot, the tall, intelligent, Basset Hound-eyed, and youngish man in charge of the domaine that bears his father's name. This estate produces some of Burgundy's finest wines, and consumers need to search them out before their prices reflect their quality. Importer: Chateaux and Estates Wine Co., New York, NY; Tel; (212) 572-7725.

A bottle opened in Burggundy showed quite differently than that opened at the big Richebourg tasting held in late 2001 with still reserved but elegant and spicy aromas that offer exceptional purity of expression followed by young, tight and powerful flavors that are racy, fresh and very long. This seems more refined than the bottle at the Richebourg tasting that was very much in a rough and tumble style with big, robust, almost aggressively tannic flavors supported by powerful black fruit and good if not exceptional extract. Allen Meadows, Burghound, Nov19,2004.

It offers a gorgeously bright medium-to-dark ruby color and extraordinary fragrances of super-ripe plums, cherries, and morel mushrooms. This brooding, powerful, full-bodied, mouth-coating, and refined block-buster is crammed with awesomely sweet black raspberries, cherries, candied strawberries, cassis, stones, and raw meat flavors that last throughout its unending finish. Wow! Bravo! Pierre Rovani, The Wine Advocate Aug 1998