1999 - Richebourg Grand Cru, Anne Gros

(13.8% alcohol, with very little chaptalization) Ruby-red. Pure, pristine aromas of blackberry, bitter chocolate, flowers and minerals. Dense, sweet and layered, with strong spicy oak flavor and intriguing notes of wild berries. Even fuller on the back end than the Clos Vougeot, with firm but very fine tannins. Compelling wine.

Anne Gros's 1999 Richebourg Grand Cru is showing well, unfurling in the glass with a still-youthful bouquet of creamy dark berry fruit, spices, plums and toasty new oak. On the palate, it's full-bodied, ample and layered, with a remarkably primary core of fruit, fine but gently chewy structuring tannins and ripe but lively acids. This is a strong effort in quite the comparatively oaky, extracted style that's so typical of this decade in the Côte de Nuits, my sole reservation being that it's a little short on complexity for a 20-year-old Richebourg.