2017 Vosne-Romanée Village

It was the first winter day when I dropped in at Hudelot-Noëllat to meet with winemaker Charles Van Canneyt. Their cellars are naturally cooler than others so I had put on an extra layer of clothing. "We started the picking on the 5 September and it took five days, finishing on the 9 September," he told me. "It was a difficult vintage in terms of finding the date of picking as you had to choose between risking phenolic maturity or achieving that but risking high sugar levels [and alcohol]. I wanted to keep the acidity so I started early, when the alcohol was between 13.2% to 14.2%. Yes, it’s high, but not as much as others. We had no problem in terms of winemaking: all the sugar finished well and the malolactic was later in July. The Premier Crus see around 25% new oak and the Grand Crus around 50%. I will probably bottle Village Crus in February and the Premier Crus in March or April."

Hudelot-Noëllat has been given a new sense of energy since Charles Van Canneyt took the helm. I remember drinking their wines regularly in the late 1990s; they were enjoyable but rustic, a bit hit-and-miss. Now there is greater refinement and complexity, greater purity of fruit and the sophistication one expects from such an enviable array of Premier and Grand Crus. Van Canneyt – and between us, I am still never quite sure how to pronounce his name – is a young, chatty and refreshingly candid winemaker with a wry sense of humour. He has introduced his own eponymous négociant range that I intend to taste in the future, plus a new Meursault under Hudelot-Noëllat, a 0.5-hectare parcel previously farmed by Coche-Dury in the “Clos des Ecole” climat.

“We picked from September 7 and finished about five days later,” Van Canneyt explained. “Everything is de-stemmed. I find the use of stems can sometimes be just a bit too trendy. The malolactics were quite late and did not finish until the following September, so the wines have not been racked. Most of the alcohol levels are between 12.5° and 13.5° after just a small chaptalisation in order to prolong the maceration. All of our wines now have Prooftag. We found 1,000 bottles of our Richebourg and Romanée-Saint-Vivant being faked in Belgium, so this is important.” I asked Charles his personal view on the 2017s and he replied, “They are a bit like the 2015s in some areas. I like their energy and transparency. Maybe that energy means that they will have good longevity.”

I agree with Charles that his 2017s convey a sense of energy. They have nascent lucidity that hopefully will be translated into bottle. The headline acts, Richebourg and Romanée-Saint-Vivant, are both beautiful wines, where his prudence with new oak (50%) allows the fruit and nuances gifted by those vineyards to shine. Maybe I might lean slightly towards the Romanée-Saint-Vivant. It is a close call. The heart of the range are the Vosne-Romanée Premier Crus, this year led by two outstanding wines from Malconsort and Les Suchots, the Les Beaumonts not far behind. Oddly, they rather show up the shortcomings in the Clos de Vougeot. Maybe it just did not perform on the day, but it feels rather stiff and masculine, plus I found myself desiring more mineralité. That aside, this is a very strong set of 2017s from Hudelot-Noëllat.