2015 Vosne-Romanée, Les Beaux Monts, 1er Cru, Domaine Jean Grivot, Burgundy
Critics reviews
Mid purple, brambly juicy fruit, complex, high class finish, with fruit and oak well integrated. Essence of dark cherry. Very long indeed. Reduction. Adore the finish.
Jasper Morris MW, InsideBurgundy.com (September 2018)
A discreet application of wood frames the slightly fresher exuberantly spicy and notably ripe aromas of dark currant, violet and Asian-style tea. The rich, sleek and mineral-driven flavors display focused power on the saline, punchy and strikingly long and linear finale. This beauty is quite firmly structured and will need at least a few years first.
Drink from 2027 onward
Allen Meadows, Burghound.com (January 2018)
The 2015 Vosne-Romanée Les Beaux Monts 1er Cru has a wonderful, expressive bouquet, once you get past just a touch of reduction. Black cherries, raspberry and crushed stone all vie for attention, and the oak is very nicely integrated. The palate is sweet and generous on the entry, and super-fine tannins frame a mineral-driven, supremely well focused finish that lingers in the mouth. Top class. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.
Drink 2023 - 2050
Neal Martin, Vinous.com (November 2018)
Rather smudgy crimson. Relatively dense and slightly cheesy nose. Lots of raciness and energy here. Fine sandy tannins and better structure than in some other Grivot wines where sweet fruit dominates.
Drink 2021 - 2035
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (January 2017)
Tasted blind.
The 2015 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Beaux Monts showed beautifully, offering up a lovely bouquet of dark, plummy fruit complemented by nuances of incense, Asian spices and smoked duck. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, supple and lavish, with a rich but compellingly sapid core of fruit, juicy acids and largely concealed satiny structuring tannins.
Drink 2023 - 2045
William Kelley, Wine Advocate (October 2018)
Good medium red. Aromas of raspberry, strawberry, spices and roast coffee show a slightly liqueur-like ripeness. Glyceral-thick and seamless but a bit more imploded and backward than the Boudots, conveying terrific spicy energy and thrust. Finishes with building, ripe tannins and harmonious acidity. Perhaps a bit less seductive today than it was from barrel in late 2016, but everything is in its proper place. This beauty just needs time.
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous.com (January 2018)
About this WINE
Domaine Jean Grivot
Jean Grivot took over from his father, Gaston, in 1955. He handed the domaine on to son Étienne – married to Marielle Bize from Savigny – in the early 1980s. When Etienne Grivot took over, the house style was for gentle, graceful wines, perhaps a little weak in lesser vintages.
Étienne has since found his own voice, making a range of increasingly fine wines. Since the mid-2000s, he has reduced yields and fine-tuned vineyard and cellar work. The next generation – Mathilde and Hubert – are increasingly influential, working under their father’s experienced and wise guidance.
Vosne-Romanée
The small commune of Vosne-Romanée is the Côte de Nuits’ brightest star, producing the finest and most expensive Pinot Noir wines in the world.. Its wines have an extraordinary intensity of fruit which manages to combine power and finesse more magically than in any other part of the Côte d’Or. The best examples balance extraordinary depth and richness with elegance and breeding.
Situated just north of Nuits-St Georges, Vosne-Romanée boasts eight Grand Cru vineyards, three of which include the suffix Romanée, to which the village of Vosne appended its name in 1866. The famous La Romanée vineyard was formerly known as Le Cloux but was renamed in 1651, presumably after the Roman remains found nearby. In 1760 the property was bought by Prince de Conti, and subsequently became known as Romanée-Conti.Vosne is the home of the phenomenally fine wines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; divine wines that are, as they say, not for everyone but for those who can afford them. The region also boasts some of the world’s most talented, quality-conscious and pioneering producers: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti of course, but also Henri Jayer, Lalou Bize-Leroy, René Engel, as well as the Grivot and Gros families, to name but a few.
Vosne-Romanée has the greatest concentration of top vineyards in the Côte d’Or, including the tiny Grand Crus of the astonishing La Romanée-Conti (a monopoly of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti producing about 600 cases a year), the classy, complex La Romanée (a monopoly of Vicomte Liger-Belair, but until 2002 bottled under Bouchard Père et Fils, producing a minuscule 300 cases or so a year) and the little-known La Grande Rue. As the name suggests, this runs up the side of the road out of Vosne. Originally a Premier Cru, it was rightly upgraded in 1992, although its rich, spicy, floral Pinots are yet to reach their real potential under Domaine Lamarche who hold it as a monopoly.
By convention the wines of neighbouring Flagey-Echézeaux are considered part of Vosne-Romanée. These include the large, very variable 30-hectare Echézeaux (divided between 84 different growers) and the more consistent, silky, intense, violet-scented Grands Echézeaux Grands Crus.
La Tâche is another monopoly of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. It is explosively seductive with a peerless finesse, and is almost as good as their legendary eponymous wine. Richebourg is one of Burgundy’s most voluptuous wines and is capable of challenging La Tâche in some years, while Romanée-St Vivant, which takes its name from the monastery of St Vivant built around 900AD in Vergy, has a lovely silky finesse but is slightly less powerful.
If that wasn’t enough, Vosne-Romanée also boasts some absolutely magnificent Premiers Crus headed by Clos des Réas, Les Malconsorts (just south of La Tâche, and arguably of Grand Cru quality) and Les Chaumes on the Nuits-St Georges side, Cros Parantoux (made famous by Henri Jayer), Les Beaux Monts and Les Suchots on the Flagey-Echézeaux border. The old maxim that ‘there are no common wines in Vosne-Romanée’ may not be strictly true, but it is not far off.
Drinking dates vary, but as a general rule of thumb Grand Crus are best drunk from at least 10 to 25 years, while Premier Crus can be enjoyed from 8 to 20 years, and village wines from 5 to 12 years.
There are no white wines produced in Vosne-Romanée.
- 99 hectares of village Vosne-Romanée.
- 56 hectares of Premier Cru vineyards (14 in all). Foremost vineyards include Les Gaudichots, Les Malconsorts, Cros Parentoux, Les Suchots, Les Beauxmonts, En Orveaux and Les Reignots.
- 75 hectares of Grand Cru vineyards: Romanée-Conti, La Romanée, La Tache, Richebourg, Romanée St Vivant, La Grande Rue, Grands Echézeaux, Echézeaux.
- Recommended producers: Domaine de la Romanée Conti, Leroy, Cathiard, Engel, Rouget, Grivot, Liger Belair.
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir is probably the most frustrating, and at times infuriating, wine grape in the world. However when it is successful, it can produce some of the most sublime wines known to man. This thin-skinned grape which grows in small, tight bunches performs well on well-drained, deepish limestone based subsoils as are found on Burgundy's Côte d'Or.
Pinot Noir is more susceptible than other varieties to over cropping - concentration and varietal character disappear rapidly if yields are excessive and yields as little as 25hl/ha are the norm for some climats of the Côte d`Or.
Because of the thinness of the skins, Pinot Noir wines are lighter in colour, body and tannins. However the best wines have grip, complexity and an intensity of fruit seldom found in wine from other grapes. Young Pinot Noir can smell almost sweet, redolent with freshly crushed raspberries, cherries and redcurrants. When mature, the best wines develop a sensuous, silky mouth feel with the fruit flavours deepening and gamey "sous-bois" nuances emerging.
The best examples are still found in Burgundy, although Pinot Noir`s key role in Champagne should not be forgotten. It is grown throughout the world with notable success in the Carneros and Russian River Valley districts of California, and the Martinborough and Central Otago regions of New Zealand.
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Description
The price of the 75cl bottle, reduced from £274 previously, includes a 10% discount. This offer is valid until midnight on 31st March and does not apply to BBX listings.
A beautiful and bright concentrated purple, this has a notable intensity of high-class fruit. It has a brilliant flavour profile across the palate with one or two black fruit notes - fabulous intensity and persistence.
Etienne Grivot held off until 10th September because he felt the tannins were not quite ripe before then. Sugar levels never rose too high, and acidity levels are good. When asked to describe the vintage, Etienne opined that 2015 has “charm and sensuality up front, energy behind; a charming but sophisticated vintage”. The vintage continues a superb recent run from the Grivots, with Etienne as éminence grise and Mathilde taking increasing responsibility during vinification.
Drink 2023 - 2035
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