2001 Vosne-Romanée Les Beaumonts 1er Cru

Along with Regis Forey and Alan Meunier, Emmanuel Rouget is one of the most candid winemakers I visit in Burgundy. Before I even taste his wines, he makes a point of telling me what went wrong with the new vintage and how he could have done a better job vinifying. Rouget began by telling me that his yields were very low in 2002. 'We had a very difficult flowering due to the temperature differential between day and night,' he explained. 'There was also a lot of millerandage Grape sugars reached 12.8%, but Rouget is quick to admit that his 2002s show limited coloring material. In fact, he was unable to do extended cold macerations as the musts started fermenting rapidly, at 12oC, and then finished quickly. The Echezeaux reached 27oC during the fermentation, but the other wines remained considerably cooler. Rouget planned to bottle his 2002s in December. 'There's no reason to wait; the richness is there, and we need to capture the fruit,' he explained, adding that his cellar, even in November, was warmer than usual owing to France's scorching summer.

Rouget describes his 2001s as less dense and fleshy than his 2000s and suited for earlier drinking. The fruit was healthy in that the skins resisted rot, and the skins were actually riper than those of 2000," he explained, "but there were a lot of pink, underripe grapes that had to be selected out on the triage table." The 2001s had not yet been racked, even though the malolactic fermentations had been finished since March. Rouget noted that the wines needed more oxygenation to "round them out." He planned to begin bottling in January, on the early side by his standards. The estate-wide yield was a very reasonable 36 hectoliters per hectare in 2001.