Domaine Jean Grivot Richebourg Grand Cru 1996

ROBERT PARKER “It offers a gorgeously bright medium-to-dark ruby color and extraordinary fragrances of super-ripe plums, cherries, and morel mushrooms. This brooding, powerful, full-bodied, mouth-coating, and refined block-buster is crammed with awesomely sweet black raspberries, cherries, candied strawberries, cassis, stones, and raw meat flavors that last throughout its unending finish. Wow! Bravo! Even though I have a stated policy of only reviewing wines that have completed their malo-lactic fermentations, I decided to make an exception for this spectacular wine. First, its malos were virtually finished, and secondly, readers deserve to know about this wine’s sublime qualities. “The most important thing for me is harmony. I don’t want hard and tannic wines. Those that are too tannic will never be good.” So stated Etienne Grivot, the tall, intelligent, Basset Hound-eyed, and youngish man in charge of the domaine that bears his father’s name. This estate produces some of Burgundy’s finest wines, and consumers need to search them out before their prices reflect their quality.”