The 2016 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru is one-third whole cluster, less than in recent years according to winemaker Brian Sieve, with almost 50% new oak. It has a beautiful bouquet with scents of blackberry, raspberry coulis, crushed strawberries and seams of wet limestone underneath. The oak is seamlessly integrated here. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannin, very focused and taut with pure black cherry and crushed strawberry on the tensile finish. This is a very stylish, quite ambitious Clos de Vougeot. Excellent.

(vinified with one-third whole clusters and aged in 50% new oak; the crop level was between 35 and 40 hectoliters per hectare, with only about 15% of the fruit lost to the frost): Healthy dark red. Slightly medicinal scents of black cherry and menthol. The palate offers an attractive blend of fruit sweetness and salty minerality, with its dark fruit flavors complicated by subtle soil tones. The tannins are suaver than in recent vintages, which allows the wine's middle palate to convey more early personality. Sieve told me he cut back on his use of whole clusters here in 2016. The estate's vines are on clay-rich soil in what Sieve described as the northern and middle third of the cru.