We’re having dinner at restaurant tonight and they have a few of the 2016 CLB wines at good price points. I am looking at the 2016 Vosne Romanee and the 2016 La Colombiere. These two wines are actually the exact same price on the wine list. I’m curious if anyone has had them both and, if so, which one they’d recommend for drinking now. I’ve had the Colombiere in prior vintages, but have not had the Vosne Romanee. I appreciate that the Colombiere is the better “deal” given that it retails for substantially more than the basic Vosne Romanee, and my inclination is to go with it, but price aside I’m curious as to thoughts on the absolute quality/drink-ability of these two wines (and particularly in this vintage).
I know many here are big fans of the Clos du Chateau, but they do not have it. The other bottles they have are the Grand Crus, which I don’t want to pay for…
The Village Vosne-Romanee is a cuvée of several (small) village sites (I think about six different, I knew it exactly but have forgotten how many), while La Colombiere is from a single site right below the Clos du Chateau in direction to the Route National.
The latter shows a bit more personality and is usually slightly finer, while the general Village has slightly more rusticity, one may also say a bit more power.
Both are very fine for a Village (and expensive resp.), but the difference in price off Chateau is tiny, I think less than 5 EUR, hence the equal price on the restaurant list.
Both are also very young, but I understand that a good price for such usually wines hard to find are too good to pass.
I´d go with the Colombière …
Of course this is all vintage dependent, but I generally find my preference in drinking order for CLB village wines young goes Clos Chateau > Colombiere > Vosne Romanee. The Clos Chateau is typically a bit lighter, floral, and generally airy which makes it easiest to open young. The Vosne Romanee a good bit deeper and darker which I find shows better with some bottle age or decent air time. The Colombiere slides in between the two styles for me and should be reasonably approachable now. Again, somewhat dependent on vintage but for Louis-Michel’s 2016’s that order still stood for me. In general I find the house style makes for village wines that are very approachable young (but great age-ability) so not sure you can go wrong either way.
I don´t have it on hand at the moment but at the Village level the difference between 2015 and 2016 was either nothing at all or just 2-3 € per bottle.
From what we saw of the '16 LB’s (the 1’ers and GC’s) they are really superb!
That being said, out of the 2 wines I think I would go with the Vosne. I have had the Vosne, Colombiere and CDC a number of times across recent vintages, and I think the Vosne would be the wine I would pick in '16 for early pleasure.
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