This dark ruby/black-colored wine conveys an impression of cookie dough soaked in cherry syrup and covered with Peking duck skins. This is a massively-structured, muscular, highly-concentrated, creamy-textured, and extracted wine. Its flavor profile is densely packed with black cherries, blackberries, cinnamon sticks, as well as Asian spices, particularly the condiment called hoisin. Anticipated maturity: 2002-2008.
Readers looking for ruby-colored, delicate, refined, and elegant wines to drink over the next decade are well-advised to shop elsewhere. Domaine Anne Gros' offerings are highly extracted monsters. Anne Gros is pushing the extraction and concentration envelope of this wine to uncharted limits. This inky, hugely-dense, and highly-structured wine may, in time, evolve into a stellar Burgundy, meriting a significantly higher rating than the one I've provided, but a wine of such sheer size and weight does not always age gracefully. Time will tell.
A Peter Vezan Selection (Paris Fax # 011-33-1-42-65-42-93).