The 2015 Echézeaux Grand Cru is slightly darker in color than its peers. There is a fug of reduction on the nose that makes the fruit profile difficult to discern. The palate is medium-bodied with grainy tannin, quite masculine and surly in style, although there is impressive substance and grip on the finish. This is in an awkward stage, but I’m convinced it will coalesce and become much more coherent with bottle age. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.

(two-thirds from Les Cruots and one-third from Les Champs Traversins): Full ruby-red. Reticent scents of dark raspberry, cherry and cocoa powder. Wonderfully suave and fine-grained but at the same time saline and dry, with its tightly wound red and darker fruit flavors complicated by savory minerality and a chocolate note. This very dry, laid-back wine finishes juicy and quite long but is not particularly expressive today.

Cask sample. Real energy and class on the nose. Very appetising and sleek with great drive and balance. Lovely stuff. Very refined. Long. (JR)