2004 Vosne-Romanée La Colombière

"The archetype of the great vintage, even if it's too early to say it's great," said Louis-Michel Liger-Belair of 2005. "We had all the key elements, and at the right time: rain, sun, extended ripening. The wines have tasted great since the start." Liger-Belair told me that 2005 was a vintage of true fruit maturity, while in 2002 the concentration came more from sun and wind in September. Yields in 2005 ranged from 32 to 40 hectoliters per hectare. Nothing had been racked at the time of my visit but Liger-Belair noted that a racking was imminent. I was bowled over by the aromatic complexity and Oriental spice character of the estate's young '05s. (A Becky Wasserman selection; importers include Pas Mal, Inc., New York, NY; Wines Unlimited, New Orleans, LA; and Vinalia Imports, Camarillo, CA)

I tasted these wines under less than optimal conditions, as Louis-Michel Liger-Belair had pulled samples of the '04s for me several days before my visit, just before he racked his barrels. (These wines are almost certainly more crystalline and bright than my notes suggest. )The wines were slated to remain in vat for about three months before being bottled. Liger-Belair told me he harvested on September 23 and 24, in two days flat "as all the vineyards matured at the same time. "He does a week-long cold soak, then ferments using little in the way of pigeage but two remontages per day. "I infuse more than I extract," he explained. Following a couple days of post-fermentation maceration, he presses with an old Vaselin press, then leaves the wine in vat for a week before filling the barrels by gravity. Liger-Belair ages his wines in oak for 12 to 14 months without SO2, using the carbonic gas for protection. Two thousand four was "a wine grower's vintage," he said. (A Becky Wasserman selection; importers include Pas Mal, Inc. , New York, NY; Wines Unlimited, New Orleans, LA; and Vinalia Imports, Camarillo, CA)