1997 Domaine Anne Gros Richebourg

Recently a friend and I met for dinner. When our wine turned out to be spoiled, we scoured the house list and found a 1997 Domaine Anne Gros Richebourg. It was so good, we altogether forgot the disappointment of the bottle we’d anticipated drinking.

Upon opening there was wonderful fruit flavors, with cherry, strawberry, raspberry, then some iron/mineral, and black tea at the end. Over time, a mushroom/dirt flavor came out. In the last glass, I tasted smoked meat and burnt sugar/bbq sauce flavor. Wow, what a wine.

I think I would say 98 points, but if you asked me what would have earned it 1 or 2 more points I’d have a very hard time telling you. For my friend and I, it was our first foray into “serious” Burgundy. Early retirement seems less and less likely.

Yesterday , I had the 2009 Richebourg from Anne Gros .I was convinced the sommelier somehow mixed up the bottles , this wine tasted like Bordeaux . Apparently not . This well extracted dark wine was nothing like a Burgundy I would recognize . Maybe it needs a lot of time like your note suggests Matthew

Herwig, I have not tried any Anne Gros wines in quite a long time for the very reason you mention, but I have to say that the 1997 Richebourg was a very pleasant surprise when a friend brought it to a tasting about a decade ago. The second I saw the label and vintage, I braced myself to be disappointed (I am not a fan of 1997 at all and think it the least useful Burg vintage since 1984 for my purposes). But it was wonderful wine- and properly Burgundian in most respects aside from being a bit more extracted than expected relative to vintage. But overall it really worked in that instance. Thanks for the note Matthew- nice to know this one is still showing well.

How do the Anne Gros wines compate to Gros F & S?