2003 Echézeaux Grand Cru

Regis Forey's 2004s were still on their lees in November, unracked. In fact, he had stirred the leesa few times since the summer to help finish the malos and round out the wines. "The 2004s have always been more refined than the 2003s, but there's also a lot of material in the best '04s," he added. He rates the vintage as between 2001 and 2002 in quality, with "the structure of '02 without as much complexity. "In fact, in November I thought the new set of wines showed strong material even if a few wines were a bit raw and sappy, with some cassis reduction.

Regis Forey has made a fat, tender set of 2003s, which he describes as "too charming now."He harvested a very small crop beginning on August 23.Potential alcohol levels were in the very high 13.5% to 14% range and all the fruit was destemmed.Forey used carbonic snow to get the temperature of the grapes down to 15oC, but not the normal 8o to 10o, and thus the cold maceration was shorter than usual.With one exception, he did not acidify his village wines or crus; he punched down the cap twice a day during the active portion of the fermentation and then once a day after that.He used less new oak than usual to age the 2003s, as he did not want to dry the wines.Still, Forey told me that the SO2 combined quickly with the wines, and that he's afraid the vintage will prove to be oxidative.I found several of the 2003s a bit flaccid in November; it was the 2002s that stood out on my latest visit.