2020 Vosne-Romanée Vigneux

“It was my first 100% organic growing season, though there were a few times when I thought I would stop,” Guillaume Tardy tells me. “We lost around half the production to frost - 63 barrels instead of 107 in 2022. There was not a lot of sun and many rain showers, so it was important to protect the vines, spraying every seven or eight days (13 treatments in total). At the end, the grapes were healthy, but if yields had been 45hl/ha, then we might not have reached ripeness. I started harvesting on 19 September, one of the first in the Côte de Nuits, on the Saturday. That day was sunny, but then Sunday was rainy. We finished picking on Tuesday, and after that, mildew pressure started building. The vinification was normal, though I had to work a bit harder to obtain structure with one or two more pigeages than usual, five or six maximum. The tannins were not so ripe, so the extraction was not easy. After pressing, the quality was not great, thinner than other vintages because of the lack of sun, but once the malos were done, everything came back, and the wines and fruit came back, whilst the greenness disappeared. The wines are not big, but they are pretty and refreshing.”

“In 2020, we started harvesting on August 28 and did everything in four days," Guillaume Tardy explained when I dropped in on his winery on the RN74 in Vosne. "When we saw the grape maturity, we knew that we would have 13.2° to 13.4° maximum potential alcohol. After malolactic, we are between pH 3.2 and 3.3 compared to 2019, when it was 3.4 to 3.5, so it has great acidity. As there was a big lack of water, the vines were stressed, and so maturity was stuck for a little while and everything concentrated. Fortunately, the tannins were ripe enough and before harvest, we had a little rain that finished off the maturity. So it ended quite well, despite the lack of juice compared to normal, around 25–30% less (30–35hl/ha). For an early vintage, the wines don’t taste like an early harvest. It feels more like wines picked around the end of September. For me, it has great potential. Everything is de-stemmed as usual and I use natural cork. I think it is my favorite vintage, alongside the 2016. It’s like a ballerina."