I remember well the big flap about the 1983 DRCs when they were released, as The Wine Spectator famously came out and called the vintage “hail-tainted” at the domaine and it was pretty hard to sell the wines in my merchant days (though I think the price on this ’83 Echézeaux was under fifty dollars a bottle back then!) and they tended to languish on the shelf for a few years. I had not tasted a bottle of the ’83 DRC Echézeaux since fairly soon after release and was very curious to try this wine when a bottle crossed my path recently. It was really a very fine example of the vintage, a bit lean in style, but with plenty of depth and intensity and no signs of hail taint that I could see. The bouquet is a fine blend of cherries, orange zest, cinnamon, woodsmoke, really fine minerality, fresh herb tones and forest floor. On the palate the wine is fullish, pure and impressively transparent, with a good core, fine complexity, tangy acids and fine length and grip on the modestly tannic finish. The tannins have resolved here very nicely, and while this is not a particularly opulent Echézeaux, there is an awful lot to like here today.