2016 Vosne-Romanée, Aux Reignots, 1er Cru, Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair, Burgundy

100% new oak. Barrel sample.

Very dark. Glowing purple. It's not as aromatic as some but very deep and dense. Almost meaty. Great energy. Refined and muscular. Ambitious. It is very long and builds on the end.

Drink 2025 - 2040

Bright red-ruby. Aromas of black raspberry and pungent minerality show a deep note of coffee reduction. Large-scaled, dry and classic, and quite backward and uncompromising today, with flavours of dark berries, smoke and crushed rock saturating the palate. Dusty tannins spread out horizontally on the vibrating, stony back end. Here's another 2016 that will require patience. Superb potential.

The 2016 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Reignots has an intense bouquet with dark cherries, violets, a hint of cold, wet limestone and blood orange. The palate is medium-bodied with a silky opening, plush and yet tensile thanks to that silver bead of acidity. The quality of the vineyard really shines through in this Reignots, the tip of the tongue tingling with spice, the back absorbing those waves of crushed black and blue fruit. Gorgeous!

Drink 2022 - 2045

An intensely floral-suffused nose of various red berry and plum scents is both exuberantly fresh and spicy. It is immediately evident that the medium-weight flavours are both more refined and more mineral-driven while delivering the seemingly contradictory combination of being at once muscular yet delicate on the serious and youthfully austere bitter cherry pit-inflected finale. As is usually the case, this is a wine of class and sophistication that should age effortlessly.

Drink from 2031 onward

Rich purple-black, this wine has a backward nose but suggests huge concentration. There is a faint reduction, but there is a huge wealth of fruit behind it. Abundant minerals dance inside a superb intensity of fruit. It is beautifully integrated and has a magical, seamless finish. It is very suave and very intense. The persistence is extraordinary.