Richebourg, Anne Gros 1999

Astonishingly dense, sexy, spicy fruit with huge flavors of earth, black cherries and cedar are followed by wave after wave of amazing complexity. Quite tannic but the tannins are so wrapped in velvet that one barely notices them. Extremely ripe but not over the top and very impressive even in this high quality group.

Here is another great wine from Anne Gros, which will reward those with the patience and nouse to cellar for an extended period. The 1999 Richebourg Grand Cru is backward and reticent on the nose, but it only takes a few swirls of the glass and it reveals gorgeous black cherry and raspberry fruit mixed with a hint of dark chocolate from some residual new oak that will be subsumed. The palate is medium-bodied with fine acidity. There is a smorgasbord of lush raspberry and wild strawberry fruit cloaked in new oak, but the wood does not obscure the grape variety or vineyard, allowing the character of the wine to be expressed with hints of white pepper sprinkled over the finish. What a great Richebourg, but one that I would actually afford another five years in the cellar. This is long-term.

..has a show-stopping, awesome nose of raspberries, strawberries, roses, redcurrants, candied cherries and violets. It is a penetrating, feminine, elegant, and precise, medium to full-bodied wine. While being intensely refined and highly delineated, it sacrifices nothing in power and concentration. This exceptional offering possesses all the components for greatness. Its structure is formed by loads of super-ripe tannin, and its personality is dominated by hugely