2016 - Clos de la Roche Grand Cru, Lignier-Michelot

The 2016 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru includes 70% whole-bunch fruit with 30% new oak. It has a very exuberant, typical bouquet for this vineyard that goes out of its way to please: copious black cherries, griottes and crushed violet aromas all demanding attention. The palate is sweet and supple on the entry with saturated tannin counterbalanced by a fine bead of acidity, harmonious and linear at first, then fanning out on the second half with lightly peppered black fruit. There is a very long aftertaste here and you can sense the presence of this wine 45 to 60 seconds after it has departed.

(30% new oak, or roughly the same percentage as all of the 2015 crus here): Bright dark red. Very sexy, subtly complex scents of dark raspberry, black cherry, licorice, coffee and mocha, with suggestions of liqueur-like ripeness. Densely packed and thick, with subtle sweetness supported by ripe acidity. Quite juicy and savory in the mouth, then firmly tannic but not dry on the very long, rising back end. The yield here was a normal 42 hectoliters per hectare. This wine struck me as a bit New World in character when I first tasted it from barrel, but today it's clearly communicating its Morey terroir. (Lignier did not open a bottle of his Clos Saint-Denis, as he has just 140 bottles--plus another 140 for the owner of the vineyard.)

Cask sample. Extraordinary opulence of aroma – floral, ripe black fruit and lovely flinty elements too. Far too young to reveal all its secrets yetawhile. (RH)