2016 Richebourg Grand Cru

Anne Gros picked relatively quickly in 2016, beginning on September 17, as the estate only had 50% of a normal crop. Her village vines in Chambolle-Musigny were most affected by frost (in fact, they went into a rosé for her personal consumption), with Clos Vougeot next worst, producing only seven barrels of wine from 0.94 hectare, or just over 16 hectoliters per hectare. Her Vosne-Romanée and Richebourg parcels were less affected, and her vines on the Hautes-Côtes escaped the frost. “But it was not a difficult vintage after the frost,” she told me in January, adding that “in principle, the tannins are riper in 2015 but I’m very content with the way the 2016s have turned out.” As is her normal practice, she destemmed all of her fruit. Gros told me she "hates the idea of stems," finding them vegetal or even animal. "I wouldn't want to eat them, so why would I want them in my wines?" The '16s were bottled in December, as is customary here.

I was too late this year to taste Gros’ ‘15s, as the limited quantity of 375-milliliter bottles she puts aside for early tastings with critics had been consumed. We tried a few bottles that Gros was not confident about, and in fact they had slipped corks and were not representative. But I did taste a sensational Clos Vougeot that showed none of the candied fruit character that Gros feared finding in some of her ‘15s, despite the fact that these wines were bottled with roughly similar pHs to the ‘16s.