2021 Vosne-Romanée Aux Malconsorts 1er Cru

“I’d rather have 2023 every year than 2024,” quips Alec Seysses. There are two simultaneous grouped tastings, one for the Brits and the other for the “rest of the world.” “We conducted a green harvest as we knew the vintage would be large. It’s a gamble because if the summer is dry then the grapes can be smaller. We picked the first whites on September 1 in Puligny Folatières, which we slightly chaptalized, and then on September 6 we did the Puligny Combettes. We finished with the reds on September 15. The September heatwave was surprising because usually it is July or August. We have never picked under such warm temperatures, and so everything was picked in the mornings before 1 p.m. We have never had such a large picking team: between 60 and 70 people. We did not want the fruit too warm, but our tanks are temperature-controlled, so we cooled the fruit to 20°C. The yields are around 45-48 hl/ha for the reds. We destemmed a little more than we normally do because of the volume, and we got caught out by some of the vats at the beginning [being too full], so overall, around 20-30% were destemmed. Maybe that was a little more than we needed to do? The alcohol levels are around 13.5% with a couple of exceptions at 14%. Our cellars were colder in 2024, and we have more efficient air conditioning, so the malo was slower and later than usual. Finally, apart from the Nuits Saint-Georges, 2023 will be the last vintage for the négociant wines under Dujac Frère & Soeur.”

In a change of format, this year Dujac hosts a “classroom” of journalists in their newly-built cuverie, desks surrounded by double-jacketed stainless-steel vats that were installed due to their wish to control fermentations more closely as global warming increases microbial activity. Jeremy Seysses remarks that the collective tasting is principally designed to reduce constant re-opening of barrels in a vintage where there are fewer of them. It affords a chance to compare cuvées, though it also means there is no one-on-one exchange, which is why we spend so much time in the region.

“The yields are 30% to 75% down with the whites heavily affected,” Seysses comments. “We started the harvest on 24 September. I was worried about the sugar levels, but good weather ultimately helped concentration. Acidity levels were pretty good, though it is not a year like 2008. It might be controversial, but I feel it has some eighties feel to it, with more concentration. In terms of mouthfeel and volume, it feels like 1985 to me.”

Diana Snowden, Seysses wife and co-winemaker takes over to tutor us through the wines and give us additional insights.

“We tried different techniques to delay budding, though, in the end, we reverted to the age-old ‘prune later’ technique. We tried leaving one cane as a kind of sacrifice to slow the sap, but it didn’t really work. It’s hard to prune late when you farm 18 hectares. We are trialling organic and biodynamic techniques side-by-side in the vineyard. We do find some differences in the acidity, but only very slightly. When you walk through the vineyard, the biodynamic vines are neater, the branches growing vertically upwards. Around 20% was de-stemmed in 2021 [figures per cuvée within tasting notes] and chaptalized up to 13% alcohol. We generally did three punch-downs, which is much less than before. All wines went through malo quite early. The Grand Crus are matured in 70% new oak. They’ll be put into tank before Christmas and then bottled in January. Henceforth, we will use bottling service as we believe the quality is better.”