2012 Vosne Romanee Aux Reignots

There is a solitary barrel of the 2012 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Aux Reignots this year, which is one more than there will be for 2013. This 2012 is being raised in one first used for the 2010. It has an understated but alluring bouquet with dark berry fruit, forest floor and citrus aromas, the stoniness developing reluctantly with time. The palate is medium-bodied with a candied entry. It is light on its feet, succulent to its very core but does not quite own the complexity or the structure of Les Beaux Monts on the straight-laced finish. Whoever gets one of the 300-odd bottles – do let me know how this works out, but like Cathiard’s own Aux Reignots, I was just expecting more given the repute of this premier cru. First stop - week 5 - Domaine Jean Grivot in Vosne-Romanee. After several dispiriting and unremittingly tenebrous days when the sun appeared to have excommunicated from Burgundy for simply being too bright, today there is not a puff of white in the sky and so the drive to Vosne-Romanee is a joy. La famille Grivot were all at the winery, including Etienne’s wife Marielle who I had met chez Simon Bize three weeks earlier (her brother Patrick having passed away recently). For me, this address acts as a barometer for how well the appellation performed since the domaine is virtually a roll call of the villages most esteemed premier crus, not to mention one or two choice grand crus. After the trials and tribulations of a fraught growing season recounted elsewhere, Etienne dusted off the secateurs on 20 September and the harvest continued for 8 days thereafter. He told me that due to the cold spring the malo-lactics fermentation had commenced later than usual and had sulfured his barrels three times during elevage. Despite everything, the barrel samples that were assembled as close to the final blend as possible, were exemplary from start to finish, despite having to swerve around reduction here and there. The “Accad” days have long been forgotten and having tracked most of their wines over the last 15 years, I have discerned a tangible “fine-tuning” in the last five or six years. If you are ever lucky enough to be able to compare and contrast his Vosne premier crus then it is immediately evident that Etienne expresses the typicite of each with greater clarity than say a decade ago. It cannot be denied that this amelioration has gone hand in hand with increased prices and the days when even impoverished old me could forage for affordable village crus and premier crus are gone. On the other hand, Etienne is creating wines that I think he has always dreamed of making and 2012 delivered the goods. Importer: Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, Napa CA; tel. (707) 299-2600 and through several merchants in the UK.