Ratings & Tasting Notes:

97 points — Wine Advocate (William Kelley, January 2019)
Broader-shouldered and ampler than the Romanée-St-Vivant, it unfurls with a lavish bouquet of cassis, dark plums, candied peel, potpourri, Asian spices, peonies and smoked duck. The palate is full-bodied, rich and expansive, with considerable depth and dimension at the core and a gourmand, almost fleshy profile that marries beautifully with its cool, precise fruit tones and velvety structuring tannins. Kelley calls it a superb Richebourg, and one that to his palate surpasses the 2015.

96 points — Burghound (Allen Meadows, January 2019)
An exuberantly fresh if restrained nose offers a panoply of spice adding breadth to mostly dark berry and plum aromas laced with smoky hints of violet, rose petal, lavender and a whisper of sandalwood. The tautly muscular, broad-shouldered flavours show outstanding mid-palate density and evident minerality across a focused, impeccably balanced and hugely persistent finale that Meadows says simply goes and goes. He finds the 2016 rather more refined than usual thanks to its beautifully fine-grained tannins — a combination of power and refinement that should age for a very long time.

95 points — Decanter (January 2019)
Discreet yet powerfully brooding aromatics mingle a hint of whole-bunch fruit with a spicy undertone of oak. Energetic drive from exotic mulberry fruit gives an immediately fleshy, sweet dark berry impact, with super-juicy loganberry arriving on the mid-palate and the tannins tucked behind the fruit for a while. The texture is voluptuous and the structure emerges stealthily, supple tannins and fresh acidity combining in a tapering, slow-burning finish.

95 points — Vinous (Neal Martin)
Martin records the picking on 23 and 24 September at 24 hl/ha. He calls it a more intellectual and arguably more challenging wine on the nose, initially reading faintly green — not from underripeness but from a stemmy element not yet enmeshed with the fruit — which dissipates after two or three minutes into a complex mélange of red and black fruit, briar, rose petals, crushed stone and a touch of seaweed. The palate is medium-bodied with quite firm tannin, less silky and more angular than the Romanée-Saint-Vivant. He names it one of the most saline Richebourgs he has encountered from the domaine, and says plainly that it needs a decade in bottle to find its groove.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti farms its holdings from Vosne-Romanée under long-established biodynamic practice, at yields among the lowest in Burgundy. Richebourg is one of the great grand crus of the commune, and the domaine is its largest owner, holding roughly three and a half of the climat’s eight hectares. The cru has a distinct identity within the cellar: where Romanée-Conti is ethereal and La Tâche flamboyant, Richebourg is the muscular one — broader-shouldered, fleshier, more overtly powerful, the wine collectors reach for when they want the domaine’s physical presence rather than its filigree.

2016 is Burgundy’s survivor vintage. A catastrophic late-April frost swept the Côte d’Or, followed by a cold, wet spring and heavy mildew pressure, before a hot, dry summer from late June turned the season around and delivered fruit of unusual purity. The domaine picked its Richebourg on 23 and 24 September at 24 hectolitres per hectare. The wine is exuberantly fresh but restrained, with dark berry fruit and plum laced with smoky violet, rose petal, lavender and sandalwood alongside cassis, candied peel and Asian spice. The palate is tautly muscular and broad-shouldered with outstanding mid-palate density, its fine-grained tannins lending more refinement than this cru usually shows young, and a marked salinity runs through a focused, hugely persistent finish. Critics divide on its approachability — one rates it above the 2015, another wants a decade in bottle before opening it.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

Outstanding condition.

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