Despite this being one of the last wines to finish up its malolactic fermentation in the Dujac cellars this year, the wine was really showing beautifully. The bouquet is deep, pure and very vibrant, offering up a complex constellation of cassis, sweet dark berries, bonfire, venison, a complex base of dark soil tones, cocoa and nutty new wood. On the palate the wine is very deep, full-bodied and soil-driven in personality, with a great core of fruit, impeccable focus and balance, fine-grained tannins and a long, seamless and tangy finish of great breed and promise.

An openly spicy and floral nose is more deeply pitched with its combination of black cherry, dark currant and sandalwood wisps. There is excellent power and punch to the middle weight plus flavors that retain a really lovely sense of detail while exhibiting excellent depth and length on the austere, serious and built-to-age finale. Note that this too is going to need time before it realizes its full and considerable potential.

(WA92-94 points) The 2014 Echézeaux Grand Cru has a clean, precise bouquet, quite broody and introspective, a subtle marine influence infusing the black and red fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp acidity, chalky tannin, tightly wound with a strict, saline finish that leaves the mouth tingling long after it has departed. This is a classy, quite sophisticated Echézeaux in the making, one that should be at the upper end of my banded score with requisite bottle age. - Neal Martin