2004 Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru

It's extremely difficult to present these notes on Denis Mortet's wines so soon after his tragic suicide at the end of January, which came as a shock to Burgundy and to his many fans around the world. Mortet was in fine form when I tasted with him in November, and he was proud to present his young 2004s, which he described as "ultimately between a good and a very good vintage for me. "The grape sugars were as high as those of 2002 (all between 13% and 14%), the acids were a touch lower, and no chaptalization was done. "It's a classic Burgundy vintage," Mortet summarized. "The wines have very fine tannins and near-perfect balance, and offer a superb definition of terroir. "He did very little pigeage during the vinification and did not stir the lees because he felt that the wines already possessed sufficient concentration and texture. In recent vintages, Mortet had simplified his range of village wines, and in 2004 he planned to bottle only a single Gevrey-Chambertin villages. Mortet's 2003 are in the extreme style of the year, and it's hard to predict how they will age. "I learned a lot from 2003," he told me. "I could have done better. I could have made more elegant 2003s if I had done one more racking. "Mortet planned to keep his 2004 prices at the level of the 2003s, even though he raised his prices with the previous vintage, explaining that "the 2004s give me more pleasure. "