La Tache 2016 is a Grand Cru red wine produced in the Vosne-Romanee region of the Côte de Nuits area, made by Domaine de la Romanee Conti. As the estate owns the vineyard in its entirety, it is the only one bottling wine under this name, and the winery set the 2016 production volume at 21,770 bottles.
Winemaking: whole clusters are used, the wine is fermented in open wooden tanks with natural yeasts, then aged in barrels for 18 months before being bottled unfiltered.
As for the harvest year, 2016 was a year of hard-fought success for the entire Burgundy region. Frost fell during the night of the 26th to the 27th of April, with temperatures dropping to as low as -5 °C in some areas; this was the single worst frost event in Côte d'Or in living memory, and a substantial amount of the Côte de Nuits was affected. For most of June, there was a threat of downy mildew, which contributed significantly to the lack of crop, not just the frost. However, July, August, and September were warm, dry, and sunny, so the harvest was spared. The harvest in the Côte d'Or region began around the 20th of September. Although this is considered late by Burgundian standards, the average ripeness of the grapes was on par with that of 2010-2011.
Yields were on the lower side, but the growing season was long. 2016 is considered one of the most successful years for this vineyard.
Robert Parker (98)
More reserved than the Richebourg and Romanée-St-Vivant, the 2016 La Tâche Grand Cru unwinds in the glass with aromas of wild berries, licorice, rose petal, smoked duck and love, framed by a touch of cedary new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, rich and velvety, with a deep, concentrated but tight-knit core, its firm chassis of fine-grained, structuring tannins cloaked in succulent fruit, underpinned by juicy acids. The finish is long and reverberative. This is a stunning La Tâche in the making, but it is also one of the more reticent wines in the range and will demand some bottle age.
Jancis Robinson (19.5)
Vines aged 51 years. 31 hl/ha. Harvested 24–25 September. Bottled April/May 2018. 1,814 dozen produced.
Lightish ruby. Gorgeously scented with the most seductive, intense and lightly spicy dark-red fruit. A little more spice here. And something almost dusty – a dry mineral note that is tangled up with a hint of vanilla and sweet spice. The tannins are compact, firm, dry but paper-fine and many layered. Amazing density and fewer aromatic signs of whole-bunch. Deep and more savoury as it builds in the mouth. It is not so much long as increasingly present after you have no more wine in your mouth, like a presence that remains after someone has left the room.
Jasper Morris (97)
Fine deep purple, not quite as overwhelming as Richebourg. Complex briary notes with dark red fruit. More savoury of course. The palate shows the incredible complexity of this wine which is not from a single terroir, more austere up front, then a wealth of joyous juicy fruit, before coming back to the stricter side running alongside this incredibly intense coulis of red and black fruit.
BOW (9.5)
