Vinous (93-95)

The 2019 Echézeaux Grand Cru contains 60% whole bunches. It comes from three plots that, still, only made two and a half barrels this year. It has a very well defined bouquet that seems to blossom in the glass, although it will need some time for the stems to be assimilated. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, very peppery in style with touches of white pepper and bay leaf towards the persistent finish. This is a classy wine, one that is not unlike Dujac’s Echézeaux!

The Bizot Echezeaux Grand Cru 2017 is an exceptional offering from the esteemed winemaker Jean-Yves Bizot, based in the Vosne-Romanée appellation of Burgundy. This attractively rich, fermented fruit antiquity hails from a notable Grand Cru vineyard in Echezeaux, marked by iron-rich clay soils that delectably infuse a special minerality into the wine.

Meticulously crafted, the Bizot Echezeaux Grand Cru 2017 displays utmost elegance with artwork of traditional winemaking techniques. Resulting in a low-yield, this exquisite wine embodies the natural essence of its prestigious terroir. The wine is aged in older, neutral barrels to ensure purity of fruit and distinct terroir expression. It captivates the palate with vibrant, nuanced layers of ripe red fruit, delicate florals, and intriguing spicy undernotes, all wrapped in silky tannins.

Jean-Yves Bizot is renowned for producing wines of profound depth and complexity, and this 2017 creation exemplifies his mastery. A must-have for well-versed connoisseurs, the Bizot Echezeaux Grand Cru 2017 promises a remarkable wine experience.

Vinous (94)

The 2015 Echézeaux Grand Cru has a competent, well-defined bouquet of raspberry, wild strawberry and earthy aromas. The medium-bodied palate is edgy in style, presenting fine tannin, well-judged acidity and a splash of balsamic that lends tension toward the sustained finish. This seems to improve in the glass, and that bodes well for the future. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.

Jancis Robinson (18)

Fragrant and smoky on the nose and palate. Chewy texture, compressed fruit. Very much in its infancy. Tight, restrained and compact. Unquestionable purity of fruit, which has a charming bitter stemminess to finish.

Vinous (91-93)

The 2019 Echézeaux En Orveaux Grand Cru is one of the few cuvées to includes 25% whole bunch. It has a light, airy bouquet of dark berry fruit, incense and a touch of lavender. The palate is medium-bodied with dry tannins on the entry, the stem addition lending quite a strong black pepper note toward the finish, which just feels a little abrupt.

Vinous (93-95)

The 2018 Echézeaux Grand Cru has a decadent bouquet of red cherry and cranberry aromas, touches of pain d’épices and a hint of menthol emerging with time. But somehow it manages to retain control. The palate is medium-bodied with ripe, slightly chalky tannins, good depth and a gentle grip toward the focused finish. This should age extremely well.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (97-100)

First picked, 100% decorticated. “This is the best wine I have made in my life”. Rich noble imperial purple. All right, team, this really is it! “Tu le bois avec le nez, you drink it with your nose”. No question here. This completely works as there is not the slightest sensation of cooked fruit. No spitting. I don’t know what to say. Actually I was just formulating the words that this is the finest Echezeaux I have tasted in my life when Jean-Pierre interrupted to say that Michel Bettane thought the same! An intensely seductive lush red velvet fruit covering an entirely perfect bone structure. One of the wines of the vintage. Could be THE wine of the vintage. Tasted: November 2021

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (96-98)

5 Star Wine. An astonishing rich imperial purple colour. Possibly it wins in density over and above the Clos de Vougeot. It doesn’t stun me as much as last year because it is no longer my first experience! An all-enveloping dark raspberry, silky as well as lush, dotted with pepper, with an almost endless finish. Grapes beautifully grown and then seamlessly made. Drink from 2030-2040.

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (93-96)

Exceptionally concentrated, indeed super saturated purple, with massive weight on the nose. There is also a huge weight of fruit to the back of the palate. While the wine from En Orveaux lacks the dainty detail which Echezeaux can have, it offers graceful muscle instead.

Vinous (90-92)

The 2021 Echezeaux Grand Cru is powerful yet not fully developed. There's good energy throughout, that much is evident, but the mid-palate needs to fill out a bit more. It will be interesting to see if that happens in bottle, as the wine I tasted was at the end of its elevage in barrel. Dark red fruit, gravel, spice, leather and game lend quite a bit of darkness to this Echezeaux, which emerges from a parcel in La Combe d'Orveau. - Antonio Galloni

Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy (93-95)

This comes from the Echezeaux du Dessus, a plot purchased in the 1960s which must have been almost immediately replanted as the vines are now 50 years old. 30% whole bunch vinification and 70% of the cuvée is in new wood but we tasted from a one year old barrel. Equally dense purple in colour. Haunting qualities with real depth. Firm and forceful, some fine-grained tannins, covered with a wealth of rich red fruit including some strawberries.

Decanter (95)

Yields were back up to normal here in 2017 after the frost-ravaged 2016 crop. This impressive Échézeaux, sourced from old vines in Les Rouges du Bas, is floral and appealing, with alluring texture, aromas of peony and rose petal, velvety tannins and a refreshing, chalk-tinged acidity. The slight reduction will disappear after racking.

Jancis Robinson (18)

Cask sample. Deep ruby; blood orange, small black fruits and zest on the nose. Consistency and affirmed style. A lasso of acidity and quite the measured tannic charge, as befits its status. Discreet for now, but evident depth and promise.

Vinous (94-96)

The 2021 Echézeaux Grand Cru has a well-defined bouquet with vivacious red berry fruit, kirsch and orange zest, very well-defined and focused. Love the energy of this Echézeaux. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy red fruit struck through with shucked oyster shell that defined the finish. Wonderful length. Bon vin.

Jancis Robinson (18)

Riper fruit on the palate with a sort of rhubarb note and loads of cherry and redcurrant. Well integrated leafy bitterness and a long, stately finish.

Wine Advocate (93-95)

The 2019 Echézeaux Grand Cru (Domaine Louis Jadot) is very promising, exhibiting incipiently complex aromas of raspberries, cassis, candied peel, burning embers and potpourri, followed by a medium to full-bodied, charming and vibrant palate that's broad and enveloping, with lively acids and fine, powdery structuring tannins.

Tim Atkin MW (95)

Hailing from Les Rouges du Bas, this concentrated and firm Grand Cru structure is nicely balanced by heady, ripe fruit. Mulberries and quince scent the bouquet, and the palate layers on mocha and cigar box. A compelling composition, this needs a few years to come into focus. 2025-38

Vinous (91-93)

The 2021 Echézeaux Grand Cru feels a little reduced on the nose, with earthy red fruit, baked cherries, wild mint and sage. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannins. This wine is cohesive with a little more flesh and complexity compared directly with the Clos de Vougeot. Once the aromatics kick into gear, this should develop into a decent Echézeaux.

Vinous (86)

Following the commendable Vosne-Romanée, I have to admit that the 2018 Echézeaux Grand Cru comes as a bit of a disappointment. It feels overwhelmed by the warmth of that summer. The nose lacks a bit of definition and has a metallic note that aeration cannot dislodge. The palate is medium-bodied with a slight chewiness on the entry. It is a solid Echézeaux that is missing finesse. Though the wine delivers decent weight on the finish, fact is that I actually prefer the aforementioned Village Cru. - Neal Martin

Vinous (91)

The 2020 Echézeaux Grand Cru has a rich and quite exotic bouquet that, for me, is just missing a bit of Pinoté. The palate is medium-bodied with lithe and fleshy tannins. Soft and caressing, nicely balanced, richer than the 2021 (no surprise there) with black pepper and a touch of spice on the finish.

Wine Advocate (98)

The single-vineyard Sorte O Soro had not been produced since 2016, and the 2019 Sorte O Soro is the next vintage after that. This plot has always shown additional elegance, freshness and salinity since he started vinifying it in 2004, because of the altitude (710 meters above sea level) and the north exposure to the Bibei Valley, where the old clone is planted on fine granite sand and quartz soils. Like As Sortes, this Sorte also fermented and matured with lees in new 500-liter French oak barrels for eight months. It has 14% alcohol with a pH of 3.12 and higher acidity (at 7.5 grams) than the rest of the 2019s. It feels very harmonious, elegant and nuanced with some creaminess, with notes of wet pollen and yellow flowers. The palate reflects the soil, with vibrant granite and very fine sand and electric quartz (saline), and it's also round and powerful from the clone that is planted in the vineyard. This vineyard is in the process of being organically and biodynamically certified. 2,240 bottles were filled in September 2020. I tasted the 2019s and 2020s from Rafa Palacios in Valdeorras. For him, these are two very good years. 2019 had a mild and dry winter and a rainy and cold spring that delayed budding, followed by a mild summer with fewer hours of sunshine, which meant a delay in the ripening process. Harvest was more than one month later than usual, and the grapes achieved very slow ripening and full development of aromas and flavors while keeping the acidity. The harvest started in October and finished in November. It's a beautiful, homogeneous vintage with very good wines. 2020 saw a moderately cool and rainy winter and a dry and cold spring that resulted in 20% less bunches than in 2019. The summer was also quite dry but, fortunately, not too hot. Given the low yields, maturation was accelerated, and the harvest began at the beginning of September for Louro and from September 25th for As Sortes. Given the scarce water, the plants had to work harder deep down into the soil, which marked the wines; the silica and quartz from the sandy soils of O Bolo shaped a saline identity and the wines achieved a lot of elegance and balance. It's a more heterogeneous vintage, and the higher-altitude vineyards behaved better. The 2020 O Soro is out of this world. He gave me a quick preview of the very cold 2021, a vin de garde vintage but a challenging year with a lot of rain. They are in the process of certifying their vineyards (organic and biodynamic), but they have some problems in the vineyards with neighbors who are not organic, so it will probably be faster for O Soro and Sorte Antiga.

Decanter (98)

Sampled from a vat, this is one of the best As Sortes I have ever tasted, comparable to the iconic 2011. It's a prodigy of subtleness and elegance. Everything is firmly delicate in this wine. Restrained aromas open up parsimoniously, with a steely structure like a great Burgundy, but with flinty acidity almost like Grosses Gewächs from Rheingau. Despite the fact that the sample was not yet bottled, the wine had no oak influence, just the indication that it had been aged, as top Godello must. Rafael Palacios is refining his work year after year, reaching the magic of the greatest wines. A top wine, and one to keep.

Wine Advocate (95)

The 2015 O Diviso felt closed, more reticent, and seems more powerful, despite the fact they did a nonextractive vinification; they did nothing and let the wine ferment at its own pace. This matured in one 600-liter oak barrel, and this is the only red that has a slight note from the oak. There is also a relevant amount of Garnacha Tintorera, so the combination of a warm year, the small barrel and the varietal mix resulted in a more austere and backward wine that is going to require more time in bottle. The fruit is darker and the wine is more powerful than the 2014. It might evolve with time in bottle, because it certainly has the stuffing to do so, but today As Caborcas was singing, and I have to give it the edge. 895 bottles produced. It was bottled in May 2016.