2004 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes

Laurent has built his negociant business on buying essentially two types of wines: those that get what he calls a naif vinification, featuring gentle extraction and minimal intervention (Laurent often calls these "vins de paysanne") and those made entirely from whole clusters (the vendange entier method). Wherever possible he works with ancient vines, often true pinot fin. Because his elevage helps to preserve the genetic identity and the energy of the wines he selects, he tends to outperform in very ripe years. Not surprisingly, his 2005 collection offers plenty of thrills. For his part, Laurent likes 2003 even better. "The 2003s will last for 40 years and will always be open," he told me, "but the 2005s are going to shut down."

Laurent describes the 2004s as less precise and pure than the 2001s owing to rot, oidium and hail, but he emphasized that the newer crop of wines is riper, especially the cuvees from later-harvested fruit. "It was important to press gently, and not to use the press wine," he told me, "and that's why I bought so little wine in 2004. "As a rule, Laurent used much less new oak to age the wines due to the harder tannins of the hailed-on fruit. At the time of our tasting, Laurent planned to cut his prices by up to 40% for this vintage. As in past vintages, the top wines here are of very high quality.