2001 Tertre-Rôteboeuf

According to winemaker/philosopher Francois Mitjavile, "there is no general understanding of the 2003 vintage based on its faults and its qualities. The plant was completely disturbed during its vegetative cycle. Winemakers were also disturbed: some could have harvested too early or made the mistake of acidifying. And now early tasters are disturbed as well." Mitjavile maintains that there are three styles of wine on the Right Bank in 2003. "First, there are wines with cooked fruit and rustic tannins. But, where the plant could work until a late harvest, there are also wines with great corpulence and the kind of fresh, explosive red fruits we find in classic vintages. The third case is what we got here: a very original vintage, which does not mean something greater than the classic years. Here, 2003 brought extreme, complete maturity. We could expect Mediterranean aromas, but in fact we got Bordeaux aromas. The alcohol is very high but you don't taste it, in part because the tannins are so supple. The vintage is almost the opposite style from 2002: creamy tannins with caramelized flavors, while 2002 shows aggressive red fruits but is not as rich as 2003." Mitjavile compared the new wine to his '89, which he believes dried out slightly during its elevage "The 2003 is more evolved and more stable than the '89," he told me. More than ever before, I was struck by the extreme individuality of Le Tertre-Roteboeuf. In the ripest years, it's distinctly roasted and yet alive. "The idea of millesime is of disturbing strangeness," said Mitjavile. "It's by definition an extreme expression of appellation controlee To the end of crafting a wine that's an accurate expression of its harvest year, Mitjavile always assembles everything in the blend, including the press wine and vin de lie, during the fermentation process.

"Both 2002 and 2001 were late harvests, and late harvests are never the greatest years," said Francois Mitjavile. "But on the best sites in what is essentially a northerly climate late harvests can give great ripeness and fruit complexity. And of course the best terroirs are also better able to withstand drought and ripen their fruit. The last ten days of dry weather in 2002 helped to concentrate the fruit, even if there was not a lot of photosynthesis happening." Mitjavile describes his young 2002 as a particularly vibrant wine ("the alcohol is 14.3% but you'd never know it"), the 2001 as a bit more confiture, with less intense fruit. Both vintages brought small crops here.

Francois Mitjavile described 2001 as a "temperate, very normal growing season, featuring more regular photosynthesis than that which occurred in 2000. It was necessary to pick late in order to avoid making acid or hard wines. The character of the vintage is more red fruit than black." Beginning with 2001, Mitjavile has a new device that enables him to do gentler pumpovers ("the device puts a large mass of juice on the cap without breaking it,"), as well as a new rotating press that allows him to retain a higher percentage of solids as the wine goes into barrel. Mitjavile emphasized that the point of his elevage is to produce wine that's more evolved at the time of bottling. He generally separates the wine from its lees at the first racking in November. He may add back the lees later, "but that would be reductive, and I would rather have an oxidative development in barrel." Not surprisingly, my experience has been that Le Tertre Roteboeuf is often flamboyantly expressive in its youth and best suited for mid-term consumption.