2013 Domaine Hudelot-Noëllat Richebourg Grand Cru

(60% new oak): Deep red, darker than the RSV. Less showy on the nose today, offering aromas of black raspberry, licorice, coffee and brown spices. Big, rich and highly concentrated; in a more masculine style than the Romanée-Saint-Vivant, showing a youthful medicinal cast to the sappy red cherry and menthol flavors. Seriously structured grand cru, finishing with a rather muscular tannic spine but also terrific lift and soil-driven salinity. Charles van Canneyt told me that this wine was much more open than the Romanée-Saint-Vivant a week before my visit, but then these two grand crus routinely "flip-flop" in his cellar during the months following their malos.

The 2013 Richebourg Grand Cru has a more broody bouquet compared to the Romanée Saint Vivant, the fruit darker, though perhaps eventually that subtle floral note with become more pronounced. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin, a fine bead of acidity plus a firm backbone and focus, although at the moment it does not have the sheer untrammeled chutzpah of the R,S,V. Still impressive though, and Charles mentioned that it was changing each day.

The 2013 Richebourg Grand Cru has a more broody bouquet compared to the Romanee Saint Vivant, the fruit darker, though perhaps eventually that subtle floral note with become more pronounced. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin, a fine bead of acidity plus a firm backbone and focus, although at the moment it does not have the sheer untrammeled chutzpah of the R,S,V. Still impressive though, and Charles mentioned that it was changing each day. Dec 2014, www.robertparker.com