2000 Echézeaux Grand Cru

Because the crop size in 2001 was more modest than in 2000, Jadot ended up using a somewhat higher percentage of new barrels. Still, winemaker Jacques Lardiere racked a portion of his "smaller" wines into vats prior to the 2002 harvest, as he wanted to protect the fruit and avoid oxidizing and thereby drying the wines' tannins. Lardiere told me that the grape skins were generally riper in 2000, but he felt that the lower yields and thicker skins of 2001 gave the latter set of wines greater concentration. As always, the wines from the numerous vineyards owned by Jadot are clearly superior to the house's negociant bottlings. Burgundy lovers who avoid the Jadot wines because they still think of the firm simply as a negociant are missing out on some of the region's best and most ageworthy examples.

Winemaker Jacques Lardiere characterizes the 2000 vintage as "soft, pretty, accessible." He actually increased the percentage of new oak in 2000, though he described this approach as risky. "We use more new oak on a so-so vintage than a rich one. But it to connect the wine's phenols, to keep the wine alive, rather than to add something. We also needed to do longer macerations, typically 26 to 28 days but sometimes longer, and the result was that we got sweeter tannins." Lardiere uses mostly Nevers oak; he finds Allier too strong and believes that this type of oak works better in vintages in which the macerations are short. He told me he did little saignee because Jadot had already eliminated so much less-than-perfect fruit on its table de trie Lardiere, well placed to comment on vintage differences across appellations owing to the great range of wines he makes, feels that 2000 favored the villages of Nuits-Saint-Georges and Gevrey-Chambertin.