1998 Marsannay Les Ouzeloy

"The '98s are higher in acidity but likely to be long-lived," Philippe Roty told me, "while the '99s are very agreeable wines, to drink before the '98s." Philippe told me that the estate uses a device that is able to gently crush even the smaller berries, which facilitates very thorough fermentations. The finished wines, says Roty, routinely carry less than one gram per liter residual sugar. For wine lovers who are unable to find this domain cru bottlings from Gevrey-Chambertin, the village wines, including those from Marsannay, routinely outperform most premier crus from the northern Cote de Nuits. And they are reasonably priced.

Joseph's son Philippe, who has his own storefront in Gevrey and vines in Marsannay, is taking on more of the work here, and it was Philippe I tasted with in November, as Joseph had a bad case of the flu, which he maintained he had contracted as a result of a flu shot. Short pruning and a high percentage of very old vines is the key to low yields here, rather than green harvesting. Although the percentage of new oak varies, Philippe told me that barrels are generally used just three times for the red wines, then are used to make rose. He also said that a bit less than one-third new oak was used for the '98s, and still less than that for the '97s. "My father and I especially like the wines aged in one-year-old barrels," said Philippe. In light of both the vintage's and the Roty wines' tendency toward early austerity, I found the '98s almost shockingly aromatic and expressive; all indications are that this will be a superb crop of wines. (I recall Roty telling me in November of '98 that he had benefitted from harvesting early.) The '97s were more of a mixed bag, dense and quite successful at the high end of the range but with a couple of the Marsannays showing dry tannins and pale colors owing to hail.