2004 Vosne-Romanée Les Suchots 1er Cru

Technical director Olivier Leriche had some big news on the evening of our tasting: he will be taking over the management of this estate, owned by the French insurance group AXA, as of the end of 2006, as long-time manager Jean-Pierre de Smet is retiring from the position. Leriche told me that the estate harvested early in 2005, beginning with white grapes on September 12, and then stopping a bit to allow for more regular ripeness of the pinot. He vinified 100% whole clusters (in 2004 he had retained only about 30% whole clusters), explaining that owing to the strength and ripeness of material in 2005 he could extract without the risk of throwing the wines off balance. Due to the whole-cluster fermentations, the malos finished by January of 2006, and the wines were racked between January and July. There are some superb cuvees here in 2005.