2017 Vosne-Romanée Village

It is always a pleasure to meet up with Jean-Nicolas Méo. This year I was smitten by two bottles of his Richebourg, the 1986 and 1991, the former made by Henri Jayer and the latter by Méo himself. So I was eager to return to the domaine and see what the latest vintage has to offer. Anything in the league of those two wines?

“We have cuvées with a little reduction at the moment,” Méo advised down in his cellar. “We have not racked the wines. We adjusted the SO2 last week and that changes the wine slightly, making it tighter but often more precise. It was a good growing season, quite uneventful. There was a fear of frost at the end of April, but otherwise it was fine. Fruit set was good. Flowering was rapid and took place over a week, ensuring a sound and healthy crop. We had a little rain in July that caused some concern, but there was no rot, and the rain in August came too late to cause damage. We started the harvest on September 6 and finished around September 13. It was a big harvest, but quick. The weather forecast was not good. We stopped for one day when we thought there would be a big day of rain, but only 2–3mm fell instead of the 20mm predicted. The wines are around 12.5° to 13.0° after a small chaptalisation. It is a vintage that is a bit lighter than 2015 and 2016 but has acquired some density during the last summer. That also happened with 2016. The change caused by the malolactic fermentation was more noticeable in 2017 since the malic acid was lower in 2015 and 2016. We are also now using less SO2 before bottling.”

I was impressed by the 2017s at Méo-Camuzet and I find many of these wines equal to their 2015 and 2016 counterparts. There is great purity here, a palpable sense of terroir expression, and I agree that these wines seem to have gained density during their barrel maturation, prompting the question of how they will perform once in bottle. I particularly admire the Vosne-Romanée Aux Brûlées, which has the audacity to surpass the Cros Parantoux. Here one finds another very fine Clos de Vougeot, whilst the Corton Clos-Rognet, an intriguing wine with a slightly gamy finish, should not be ignored.