2003 Echézeaux Grand Cru

Jadot bought almost no red grapes or wine in 2003, relying instead on owned vineyards that it could control totally and harvest late-mostly after September 1.Almost predictably, Jacques Lardiere took a different approach to vinifying his 2003s than most of his Burgundy colleagues."The key to the vintage was long maceration," he insisted. "The vintage was very Mediterranean in style at the beginning.That's why I did so much extraction.We didn't have much juice in the grapes, and we would not have been able to expand the spectrum of aromas and flavors without doing enough maceration.If the tannins in some of the wines look green today, it's because of our extraction.But it would have been a mistake to think that we could retain the same fruit that we had at the beginning."The macerations here lasted between 15 and 23 days, short for Jadot but long for Burgundy 2003; Lardiere did two pigeages per day except during the last week the wine remained in contact with the skins. Lardiere did not acidify the musts, but noted that he may still add a bit of tartaric to the wines.The top cuvees, like Jadot's 1997s, offer strong potential, but Lardiere was quick to emphasize that 1997 was a special case here."We picked way late in '97, 12 days after everyone else," he explained."We made great wine because our grapes lost 20% to 30% of their liquid.The early harvesters picked in the rain."