Wine Advisor
Jean Grivot, Richebourg Grand Cru 2011
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Neal Martin
Tasted blind at the Burgundy 2011 horizontal tasting in Beaune. The Richebourg 2011 from Etienne Grivot has a splendid bouquet with ripe, delineated raspberry, wild strawberry and red plum scents that are suffused with fine minerality. This just gets more and more complex in the glass. The palate is well balanced with fine tannins, crisp acidity and vibrant raspberry and cranberry fruit. It is nicely structured, which at the moment lends it a more masculine personality, but everything here is in its right place and there is precision all the way to the precise and tensile finish. Which 2011 Burgundy got the highest average score out of 250 tasted blind? This one.
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2011 Richebourg is on an entirely other level from the previous grand crus. An explosive, full-bodied wine, the Richebourg bursts from the glass with blue and black fruits, violets and white pepper. A complex, multi-dimensional wine, the Richebourg boasts stunning depth and power married to pure elegance. Today it is vibrant, intense and riveting. This is a breathtaking wine from the Grivot family.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
Medium red. Cherry, strawberry, raspberry and a whiff of caramel oak on the nose. Wonderfully sappy and energetic in the mouth, with powerful minerality and floral character giving cut to the complex flavors of raspberry, crushed cherry, spices and earth. Really superb retention of fresh fruit here--and more red than black in style. Most impressive today on the long, echoing finish, which saturates the entire mouth and leaves the taste buds quivering. Clearly the best of these 2011s.
Reviewed by: Stephen Tanzer
(75% new oak; from a crop level of about 28 hectoliters per hectare, according to Grivot): Good, bright deep red. Darker berries, smoky minerality and Oriental spices on the highly aromatic nose. The sweetest and most intense of these 2011s, conveying density of texture with a light touch and displaying superb precision and cut to its dark fruit, licorice and crushed stone flavors. The big, broad tannins spread out and vibrate on the very long finish. This really perfumes the mouth.
About the Producer
Domaine Jean Grivot is among the great names in Burgundian wine. Étienne Grivot and his wife Marielle (Patrick Bize's sister) took over from Étienne’s father Jean Grivot in 1987. The Grivot family believes in generational change and in 2017, Étienne and Marielle’s daughter, Mathilde, took over for her parents. Mathilde brings a fresh approach while maintaining the longtime traditions of the Grivot family. The recently renovated winery and cellar is in Vosne-Romanée where most of the Grivot vineyards are located. The domaine has been assembled over several generations to its current size of 15.5 hectares and includes holdings in three grand crus: Clos de Vougeot, Echézeaux, and Richebourg. Mathilde believes in getting quality first thanks to meticulous vineyard work throughout the year. The result of this hard work is healthy, ripe (both phenolic and sugar levels) and depth of concentration and flavor of the fruit. Today, the vineyards are densely planted and farmed organically “sans certification,” while the aim in the cellar is for balance and clear expression of terroir. The grapes are entirely destemmed and maceration à froid usually lasts just a day or two. The fermentation starts naturally, with a little punching down before this fermentation begins. There is no more pigeage after fermentation begins, “I don’t like to mix the physical (punching down) with the spiritual (fermentation),” said Étienne. After fermentation, the wines are pumped over once a day before aging in barrel for 15 months. Depending on the vintage, the proportion of new oak is around 25% for the villages appellations, 30-40% for the premier crus and 40-45% percent for the grands crus.
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