Medium-plus colour. The nose is about deep, macerated fruit – and even goes deeper with time in the glass. It’s very pretty indeed and all the while adds faint if not wild complexity. In the mouth the clear first impression is width, aided by faintly grainy tannin across the whole panorama. There is an understated presence and interesting complexity, though the finishing flavours are a tad simple despite their length. A good wine here, but today I shy away from ‘great’ as I didn’t find any real focus or ’spine’ to the wine making it come across as ill-defined/loose in the mid-palate. Give it time, but today I’d rather drink the 99 Leroy Narbantons.
Grands-Echézeaux
2007 Clos Frantin Grands-Echézeaux
2007 Gros Frère & Soeur Grands-Echézeaux
2005 Bichot Albert Grands-Echézeaux
I drank this (the vines of and tended by Philippe Engel) out of sequence as I really wanted the comparison with the Griotte. The vanilla-style sweet oak is still too much to the fore, this is a wall of almost overpowering aromas – it’s certainly not shy. The palate is balanced, initially with a hint of carbon dioxide and incredibly wide and long – by far the most impressive wine of the night in this respect. This wine needs at least 2 years to lose the facile, sweet oak – but afterwards, it will be a stunner!
2006 Clos Frantin Grands-Echézeaux
2005 Romanée-Conti Grands-Echézeaux
The aromatics have a much deeper aspect – mulberry and savoury oak, a little spice and only faint stems – much more ‘adult’ than the obviously riper Echézeaux. In the mouth it’s very tight, but at the same time, more intense. The tannin just shows a little astringency in the mid-palate, the impression is just a little less fresh than the Echézeaux too. The finish is a slow diminuendo and less impressive today than that of the Echézeaux. The aromatics are the only dimension that clearly outpoints the previous wine – clinging beautifully to the glass. This has great potential, but today has quite a sullen aspect.
2005 de Villamont Henri Grands-Echézeaux
2005 Bichot Albert Grands-Echézeaux
Only slightly darker than the Clos Frantin version. The nose is much more fruit driven but very tight. The concentration here is similar to the Clos Frantin but it’s more elegantly packaged. The finish is also equally long but with this glass it appears just a hint more complex with an added creamy depth. To choose between this and the Clos Frantin version is purely a matter of personal taste, mine lies here.
2005 Clos Frantin Grands-Echézeaux
Medium-plus cherry red colour. The nose starts quite animale, taking quite some time to subside leaving only the most subtle of dark-skinned fruit aromas. There is a lot of wine here; ragged, chewy tannins leave little room for elegance, but you are left with quite profound, complex wine that bursts across the palate with red and black fruit flavours into the very long finish.