2004 Echézeaux Grand Cru

"Two thousand five will be a very good vintage thanks to its lovely structure and sweetness," says Regis Forey, who had already moved a few of his wines to cuve by mid-November for fear of losing the fruit. He was planning to move the rest within the following week or two. Forey finds more "sweetness and roundness and pleasure" in the 2005s than in the '99s, which he described as drier and harder. On the other hand, he believes that the 2005s will shut down in bottle, "unlike the '85s and '93s." Forey does a fairly extractive vinification: following a week-long cold soak, he punches down the cap three times a day until the alcoholic fermentation is well underway, then generally does one punch-down and one pump-over daily until the sugars have been converted. He then does five or six days of further maceration, for a total of about 25 days of maceration in 2005. But in 2005, the strong material could support that approach, and the wines noted below are 12.8% to 13.5% alcohol without chaptalization. Incidentally, Forey used no new oak for his villages wines except for the Vosne-Romanee, one-third of which was aged in new 500-liter barrels.

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.