Grands Echezeaux		1978	DRC

6/97. Acquired at auction Sep-96 for $170 (imported for $196 net).
The standard reference for this great vineyard from the exceptional 1978 vintage by the illustrious DRC. Less then 1000 cases were made of this wine. My bottle carried the ordinal number of 153 out of 11550 bottles (whatever THAT means).
The bottle looked in pristine condition and accompanied an intimate Friday night dinner at home. Garlic cream and portabello mushrooms, steak au poivre with dauphinee potatoes, Tomte-like cheese and fresh berries, home-made dry cake.
COLOR: On the palish side of the average red (B) color. Uniformly dull orange-red, with no browning and hardly any clearing around the rim. Heavy sediment made the last quarter of the bottle a little murky in the glass (I rarely decant (B) wines and would certainly not do it to 20 years old ones).
NOSE: Simply stated, the essence and the ultimate of an extraordinary 'Bourgogne Nose'! Clean voluptuous fruit jumping out of the glass. Cherries, cassis, dried prunes, with hints of marmalade and even chocolate. Fruit concentration on the nose is so dominant that it leaves little room for the familiar earthy forest-floor bouquet to compete.
TASTE: Delivers every promise made by the nose. Both multi-layered and full of winyness yet as smooth as silk. Fresh fruit mingles with mature sweetish flavors. Every sip is a complex harmonious experience from start to finish. We had to restraint ourselves not to finish the bottle halfway thru the delicious dinner.
LENGTH: More than a full minute of ever-developing fantastic aftertaste. The ripe fruit just hanged there refusing to recede... That held true for the first 40 minutes. After that both nose taste and aftertaste lost some of their vitality.
TEXTURE & BALANCE: As full bodied as a true Grand Cru can get without losing a iota of its majestic delicacy. Good alcohol, right amount of acidity, soft tannins - all give the perfect backbone to the lush ripe fruit and complex flesh. The perfect balance and harmony was accentuated by the extremely tasty dinner and the beautiful Chimarosa Requiem that was playing in the background (Anyone ever thought of matching wine and music? < g >)
OVERALL: Divine! A 'Grand Vin' at its grandest best. I doubt if this wine was ever better or will improve farther in the future. A perfetto. (The only reason I don't mark it 20/20 is that I must leave room for the La Tache and Romanee Conti of this vintage. Wines I will probably never taste...)
MARK: 19++/20.aaaaaaaaBUY MORE? Yes.

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Copyright 1996-2003.
Jacob "Yak" Shaya.