2018 Vosne-Romanée Vieilles Vignes

Cécile Tremblay (plus faithful if lazy hound) greeted me at the winery in Morey-Saint-Denis. As usual we tasted in the mezzanine from pre-prepared samples poured from decanters. “It was a hot early vintage with good flowering," Tremblay told me. "But in fact, it [by this she refers to global warming] is not bad for Pinot Noir...but not good for the planet. The high alcohol can be a problem if you cannot get the phenolic ripeness. The 20mm of rain at the end of August proved crucial and I started the picking on 4 September and harvested for five days. I’ve never really seen a harvest like this and it was a new kind of vinification, using less whole cluster because the pH was high and I didn’t want to increase it further. There was no acidification which is very important. The pH in 2018 is a little higher than 2019. I never thought I would have a volume like this. I remember 2006, which was my fourth vintage, was horrible because there were small yields, less than 20hl/ha, but in 2018 it was 32hl/ha which is perfect."