Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru
Case price (Bottle 6 x 75cl)
Bottle 6 x 75cl 4cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Case price (Bottle 1 x 75cl)
Bottle 1 x 75cl 2cs
“A vintage of pure happiness,” enthuses Nicolas Potel. He rightly retains enthusiasm for Burgundy as a whole and his own wines in particular, though his life has been made more difficult by the explosion of prices for grapes on the open market. However these cuvées make sense to us: we tasted a wide range and picked out the plums.
Étienne Grivot reports better yields in 2014, about halfway between the miserable crops of the previous four vintages and what would count as a very good year. The grapes are de-stemmed but preserved fully intact using the newest model of destemmer. They were totally healthy in 2014 and Mathilde Grivot describes the wines as being accessible, fresh, yet still complex. We would add that they are – yet again – amongst the finest of the whole Côte.
In the vineyard Sébastien has been moving towards an organic approach. In the cellar, while vinification remains broadly similar, much less new wood is being used during élévage: the village cuvées have been reduced to 50 percent and the crus to two thirds, with a slightly lighter toast being employed in the barrels. All the wines are so much more elegant with less new wood. The 2014 vintage is lovely here.
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director
Nathalie Lamarche recalls that the harvest began on 22nd September with acceptable yields in the Vosne-Romanée vineyards, about the same as for 2011. In vinification Nicole Lamarche uses a small proportion of whole bunches, while the amount of new wood in the barrel cellar has been reduced to a maximum of 50% for the Grands Crus. This is the best selection of wines that Nicole Lamarche has produced since taking control of the winemaking in 2007. In short, a really fine range.
These are concentrated wines at Domaine de Bellene this year, and the vintage reminds Nicolas Potel of 1991. The wines came in with correct sugar levels, around 12.5 percent, and perfect acidities; they were vinified for a full month with minimal intervention, using whole bunches for the senior wines. The wines were due for bottling in early December.
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 3 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Wine Director
Nicolas Potel has retained the majority of his regular contracts in 2012, though a couple are missing after the hail. Like everybody else, he has had to pay more for his grapes though, especially at the top end of the hierarchy. But as ever there are some delicious wines in the range, and at the lower end the prices are thoroughly competitive.
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director
2010 is the first vintage to be made in the new cuvrie at this domaine, but it will be the last that is vinified by Sylvain Cathiard himself, he is handing over responsibility to his son Sbastien in 2011. The harvest began on 25th September with volumes just a little down compared to previous years, but as ever, Sylvain and his son have produced a most seductive range of wines.
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris, MW - Wine Buyer
A late cycle all the way though, in 2013 Etienne started picking from 5th October. After conferring with his aunt Jacqueline Jayer, he noted that 2013 shares the same harvest dates as 1978 and also that in both vintages there were very few pips in the grapes and they were fully ripe. Low sugar levels, ripe skins and good acidity should lead to fine wines with excellent keeping qualities.
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director
With Nicole Lamarche firmly in charge, the domaine has converted to organic farming, and the recipe in the cellar this year was for a long vinification but less extraction. The wines have spent twelve months in barrel (with 30% new wood for the village wine and up to 60% for Grand Crus) before being transferred to vat. Sadly, many of the Vosne-Romanée vines here did not make it through the winter, so there is no village wine this year for us in 2010. Otherwise, expect attractive wines in 2010 with excellent typicity.
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 12 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris MW, Burgundy Director
This has been one of the most exciting cellars in the whole of Burgundy for the last few vintages, a fact which is beginning to be reflected in the pricing. The significant reduction in crop this year, which Etienne Grivot ascribes more to the extreme winter cold than poor flowering, is also a factor. Etienne has been working hard to refine the tannins in his wines, and has surely succeeded in 2010, by producing wines of great energy but with suave, sophisticated finishes. These are brilliant wines that unfortunately, are in short supply.
Neal Martin, The Wine Advocate. 30th December 2014.
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Allen Meadows, Burghound, April 2015
Allen Meadows - burghound.com - Jan 2014
Bottle 6 x 75cl 1cs
Jasper Morris MW, Wine Buyer
Sébastien Cathiard completed his harvest in just three days, beginning on 12th September. He already had good sugar and low-ish acids a week earlier, but not the desired phenolic maturity. He took the decision to run with the vintage and so extracted as much as in other years, in fact punching down more in 2015 than 2014. He also made sure that the malolactic fermentation happened relatively late, so these are backward wines which will require quite a lot more élevage. But they are unquestionably brilliant wines. Sébastien has used less new oak than in the past and with a lighter toast to the barrels.