2008 Vosne Romanee Les Hautes Maizieres

Bitter concentration of cherry and blackberry with their pits and seeds marks the Arnoux 2008 Vosne Romanee Hautes Mazieres as a Pinot that will need time in bottle, assuming its personality even appeals to you. Peat and iodine lend smoky, medicinal notes to this darkly-hued yet tart Vosne that finishes with grip as well as a certain severity. Perhaps it needs time to recover from bottling, but in any event I would expect it to require patience (and crossed fingers) from bottle. I tasted Pascal Lachaux’s 2008s soon after their late-January bottling, and a few of them may have been suffering from trauma they thereby sustained, but on the whole this was an impressive if darkly-hued and unapologetically firmly-structured collection. Lachaux reports that his malos were “on time, normal,” and adds “the truth about 2008 and why the malos were so often retarded is that people sulfured the fruit too heavily at the advice of their enologues.” Even at bottling, Lachaux reports that he was sparing with sulfur and expected to take advantage of the high levels of residual CO2 in his 2008s. He says he allowed temperatures to rise during the fermentation as a means of extracting more flavor without having to actively work the cap and in consequence risk pulling out green flavors or hard tannins. This approach may explain the particularly low-toned personality of this 2008 collection, which certainly didn’t leave me wishing that the wines had sustained additional pigeage! If the number of magnums I saw is any indication, Lachaux seriously intends on putting to the test his confidence in this vintage’s aging potential. Yet he is also very keen on his 2007s, those of which I tasted from bottle were indeed impressive, though I seem even in this instance to be missing what those growers most enamored of their 2007s profess to perceive. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990

Bright, deep red. Lively aromas of blackberry, black raspberry, flowers and licorice. Light and on the lean side, with hints of berries, herbs and leather. Could use more depth and length, but not bad.