2018 Vosne-Romanée Aux Réas

Having visited Domaine Arlaud for almost a decade now, I must say straight from the off that Cyprien Arlaud's 2018s rank among the best that I have tasted. "We had a humid spring but we had good water reserves," he told me down in his barrel cellar. "Then we got the heat. The profile of the growing season was like 2009. I started picking on 3 September and finished nine days later in the Hautes Côtes. There is no 2018 below 13.0% alcohol and the highest is the Morey-Saint-Denis Les Blanchard and Vosne-Romanée Village that are both 13.9% alcohol. I was careful about the yield. I did my first green harvest in 2017 and in 2018 I did some in Clos de la Roche and especially the Bonnes-Mares that had been strongly frosted in 2016 [and is therefore still striving to compensate for that year's shortfall.] One of the keys to the vintage was obtaining water from the storm in August, which prevented hydric stress and dryness in the berries. It was my twentieth vinification and perhaps the most complicated. It was the first where I felt the affect of the climate change in terms of the yeast not being adapted to the warm conditions. However, by 2019 I feel that they have already adapted. But in 2018, one or two cuvées took time to finish the alcohol fermentation. It wasn’t easy but the combination of old vines, farming and timing of the picking help against global warming. This year I am amazed at the expression of the Grand Crus."