2018 Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots 1er Cru

My visit to Domaine de l’Arlot was at the beginning of my tastings at the end of September. Winemaker Géraldine Godot, who had her first child between now and our visit last year, escorted me to their comfortable new tasting room, which always makes my job ten times easier and more comfortable. “We started picking on 12 September in the Côtes de Nuits Village and finished on 17 September,” Godot told me. “We have to be very focused on the day of picking and the different characteristics of each vineyard. We constantly taste the berries. We must preserve freshness, as temperatures in the summer are now consistently warm. I like surprising vintages that do not necessarily correlate to the growing season. General yields are around 22hl/ha. We lost 20% compared to 2018, more for whites than reds, but also we lost a lot in Les Suchots because we had a frost that we didn’t see at the time. We lost half the production here. All the whites are in tank and will be bottled later this year. Alcohol levels are 13.5° for the whites and lower for the reds, which was a surprise. We had some stuck fermentation so we had to use external yeasts to get the process restarted - so we have to be more and more reactive and present. The acidity levels are around 3.65pH, for the Romanée Saint-Vivant, 4.9g/l total acidity, and 3.33 in pH. There is a higher level of tartaric acid in the Grand Cru compared to other appellations. Sometimes we have to adjust the wines but in 2019 I didn’t have to do any adjustment at all. I noticed the whites heavy when I first tasted them, but I felt more freshness in the reds. I recognize a lot of floral aromas on the whites but they need to be slightly chilled otherwise they will feel heavy.”

This was a fine set of 2019s from Domaine de l’Arlot, my personal pick within the ‘home’ appellation, a superb Nuits Saint-Georges Clos des Forêts Saint Georges, not to overlook a quite delicious Côte de Nuits Village Au Laurey Blanc in the making. I absolutely adored the satin-textured Romanée-Saint-Vivant, amongst the best of several tasted during my visits.

It is true that my appearance has altered in the last few months. Yes, I was wearing sunglasses when I arrived at Domaine de l'Arlot and greeted winemaker Géraldine with a jovial "Bonjour" and two "bissous" on each cheek. But I didn't expect her to not recognize me at all. Maybe I shall wear a name-tag. Given the traumatic growing season she experienced and that she was about to go on maternity leave, I can understand her mind might have been on other things. "The harvest began on 1 September in Suchots and Romanée-Saint-Vivant, finishing on 7 September. The whites take just a morning to pick. The season was special as we had big storms, two with hail in July that caused mudslides in the Clos des Fôrets. We had to take the mud back up the vineyard. It came up to your thighs if you stood in it. It all happened in 20 minutes whilst we were working at the Domaine. We saw the mud just coming down [the slope]. At first we thought we had lost 30% of production after these storms, but finally at the beginning of the harvest, some growers asked if we had some spare barrels and found that we needed them ourselves. So it was not so bad and finally we had the same volume as in 2017. We now look back at this episode as a kind of green harvest. That is because the grapes were more generous in the end. We had a good maturation so that the final alcohol was between 13% and 13.5%, the maximum in Clos des Fôrets and Romanée-Saint-Vivant." I tasted the 2018s in the Domaine's new tasting room from pre-blended sample bottles.