2016 Echezeaux

(30% vendange entier ; just half of a normal crop due to frost losses through the combe ): Bright, dark red-ruby. Rather brooding aromas of blackcurrant, dark raspberry, licorice, violet, crushed rock and spices. Then surprisingly dense and sweet in the mouth, more generous and creamy than the Vosne-Romanée Les Rouges du Dessus, showing a hint of chocolate. This wine is always the highest in pH in the cellar, noted Tremblay. Finishes with suave, fine-grained tannins, a suggestion of marzipan sweetness and building length. Tremblay noted that owing to the cordon de royat pruning used here, the buds are a bit higher off the ground, and that made a difference during the frost as the temperature at this level may have been as much as a full degree Centigrade higher.

Hit 50% by the frost, the 2016 Echezeaux du Dessus Grand Cru, which Cécile Tremblay believes was affected less because the vines are trained Cordon Royat at a higher height than Guyot Simple. It has delightful and (again) very pure and seductive bouquet with ample black cherries, blackcurrant and blueberry aromas, sutured perfectly with new oak (50% here). The palate is medium-bodied with a sweet, licorice-tinged entry that merges into a mid-palate packed to the rafters with black and red fruit. But this is not an overpowering Echézeaux and it maintains superb focus all the way through to the finish. This is as good as the 2015 and may even surpass it.