2012 Vosne Romanee Les Suchots

Good bright, full red. Sexy, high-pitched aromas of crushed raspberry, Oriental spices and rose petal. Silky, penetrating and deep, displaying outstanding concentration and verve, and a magically light touch, to its brilliantly pure dark fruit and spice flavors. Wonderfully elegant, supple, dense wine with a superb building finish that leaves the mouth awash in perfume. These very old vines always have a high percentage of millerande berries and never produce more than 35 hectoliters per hectare, according to Charles van Canneyt. (The Vosne-Romanee Les Beaumonts had been racked two weeks before my visit, as it had shown some mercaptans at the beginning of its malolactic fermentation, and was still impossible to taste.)

A bevy of floral and spice notes meld into dark red fruit, cedar and new leather in the 2012 Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots. Rich and expressive yet also weightless in the glass, the 2012 impresses for its contrasts and multiple dimensions of pure class. The airy finish is all class.

The 2012 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Suchots comes from a 0.45-hectare holding planted back in 1920. It has a slightly muted nose out of barrel, but it unfurls revealing earthy, mossy scents with aeration. The palate is clean and fresh, but somehow foursquare and a little conservative compared to some of the domaine’s other premier crus. You get the impression that this Les Suchots is hiding something up its sleeve, whereas this vineyard is habitually one of the most expressive in its youth. Dusk was falling as I pulled up outside Domaine Alain Hudelot-Noellat in Vougeot. It is always good to finish the day with a producer whose wines you admire and this was a fitting denouement to a long day in various cellars. I met Alain’s grandson, 25-year old Charles von Canneyt. After working in New Zealand, hence has superb English, his first vintage at the domaine was in 2008. He comes across as a relaxed, self-effacing winemaker at ease with the enviable cache of holdings, not predisposed to long orations about each wine, but willing to furnish you with everything you need to know. In a short space of time he has endured/experienced the whole gamut of vintages variations. “After 2012, I thought at least I had experienced the most difficult growing season,” he told me. “That was before 2013.” I replied that it was all part of a learning curve. It is just such seasons where you really hone your craft, and it stands you in a good stead for the future. He told me that after successful experimentations with whole cluster fermentation in 2011, he expanded this practice so that all the 2012s were vinified with 20% stem addition. The one anomaly is the Romanee-Saint-Vivant. Charles decided to literally “chuck in” a crate of stems, a little “seasoning” into the vat and he intends to continue the practice henceforth, perhaps in a more premeditated manner and subject to vintage variation. Importer: Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639