Description
Vintage quality: Excellent
Current condition: Ready to drink
The 1996 year for Burgundy was excellent.
A warm spring led to an early flowering. The summer was cool with moderating winds blowing throughout August. These winds quickly dried grapes after rainfall which is crucial to keeping rot at bay. Temperatures only heated up again in September which helped ripen the grapes while cool nights helped retain acidity. The resulting harvest was large, concentrated and healthy.
In general, the wines were elegant and extremely well-balanced with fine sugars and acidity, many were age-worthy. The wines of Côte de Nuits are generally recognized as having a slight edge over those of the Côte de Beaune.
Widely regarded as fine a vintage as 1990, many of these wines should not only still be drinking well now but will have gone on to improve even further.
