2017 Richebourg Grand Cru

Anne Gros is a winemaker who I have been visiting for a couple of decades – indeed, since long before I picked up a pen and started attaching words to wine. Hers is a small portfolio crowned by a slice of Richebourg inherited from the Gros family when she started out as the only daughter of François Gros in 1988. In the last two or three years, she has been accompanied by her daughter, Julie and you can see the reins of the domaine being gradually passed over to the next generation. Julie took me around the spotlessly clean winery occupied by their stainless steel vats. “We started the picking on September 7,” she told me. “The 20mm of rain we had at the end of August gave us more volume, perhaps an extra barrel per cuvée. That gives them a little less colour but makes them more approachable. All the wines are matured in one-third new oak, one-third a year old and one-third two years old.” The wines are, as Julie describes them, more easy-drinking in style compared to the frost-affected 2016s and the 2015, and lighter but still balanced. The Richebourg is not necessarily the best offering from the domaine and this year I am taken by their Clos de Vougeot Le Grand Maupertui, which comes highly recommended.