2022 Vosne-Romanée Vigneux

Readers should refer to the video interview I took with Guillaume Tardy in the Media section. I feel that his 2023s mark a different style of Pinot Noir, which I attribute to his recent introduction of a Bucher destemmer that has ramifications for fermentation (insofar that more whole berries enter the vat). This appears to manifest more graceful expressions of his holdings, finer tannins, more red fruit and a newfound sense of transparency. In fact, this was one of the most impressive ranges from Tardy in recent years. I wholeheartedly approve of what feels like a new direction.

Guillaume Tardy popped his head out of the winery’s upstairs window and told me he was coming down. This is a winemaker who’s tweaking the formula a little, undertaking lighter plowing in the vineyard in order not to disturb the vines, converting to organic farming, now in its second year, and de-stemming while leaving berries whole to do a semi-carbonic maceration from the 2023 vintage. Those wines must wait for 12 months – the 2022 was under discussion today. “It was quite a sunny vintage during the growing season with just some rain around June 21 and 22,” he tells me. “We didn’t suffer too much hail damage in Fixin and Gevrey-Chambertin. We had two rainstorms in August, which helped with yields and meant the younger vines did not suffer. When we pruned the vineyard in the autumn, it was very hard as vines had put energy in the fruit. Some of the vines died after all the recent dry summers. I started picking on September 1, and there was less to sort out than in 2023. Everything is de-stemmed. The fruit was not too ripe; grapes picked around 12.5% alcohol, pH between 3.3 and 3.5, with less than half a degree of chaptalization. The wines are better than I thought a year ago.”