2013 Echézeaux Grand Cru Domaine Arnoux-Lachaux

Pascal and Charles Lachaux make unrepentantly modern wines that show well in their youth, but age appealingly too. The oak is quite flashy and insistent here, but there's a nice backdrop of red and black fruits, medium-weight tannins and plenty of concentration, underpinned by a chalky tang. 2018-28.

A brooding, floral and pungently spicy nose features notes of plum and dark berry fruit scents that are trimmed in just enough wood to notice. There is outstanding richness to the full-bodied and attractively textured flavors that possess good muscle yet the overall mouth feel is relatively refined and this sense of refinement continues onto the powerful and moderately austere but well-balanced finale. This should be excellent in time.

Bright, dark red. The nose offers a sexy amalgam of redcurrant, rose petal, iron, smoky oak and truffley underbrush. Quite silky and plush for the year but the ripe red fruit and soil flavors are accented by an element of peppery herbs. Finishes ripe, smooth and long. Deceptively approachable today, but has the stuffing for a graceful evolution in bottle. I like the stem influence here.