1995 Richebourg Grand Cru

Long-time readers of these pages know that I was frequently critical of the wines made by Etienne Grivot under the consultancy of Guy Accad. Those wines, I pointed out, frequently showed little Pinot Noir character and often seemed downright weird. They have not magically metamorphosed into swans. Accad is long gone from this cellar, even if Grivot insists that he still uses a modified version of Accad techniques (Accad lite?), and the wines made here since 1993 have been consistently superb. Grivot says that '96 and '95 have the same "quality of acid" and that both vintages offer outstanding aging potential. The '96s, he says, are more likeable wines and will be good young; the skins were a bit riper and grape sugars slightly higher than those of the previous year. Grivot did a cold maceration of only four days for his '96s: with ideal maturity, he explains, there was little to gain from a cold soak. Many other growers, he notes, automatically do a cold maceration each fall but don't know why they do it. The '95s, which were bottled last spring with a light filtration and no fining, have turned out extremely well.