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2008 Arnoux - Lachaux Vosne Romanee Aux Reignots

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Year: 2008 Appellation: Vosne Romanee 1er Country: France Burghound Rating: 92 Outstanding! Vins Rare - 93 Excellent!	$149.00
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A refined, cool, pure and elegant set of black fruit, stone and Asian spice aromas where the spice also suffuses the supple, detailed and equally minerally flavors that possess a real sense of finesse on the understated but impressively long and superbly well-detailed finish. Burghound 92 Outstanding!

Note: from a .29 ha parcel

Pascal Lachaux described the 2008 as a "miracle vintage. The summer was so wet that I'm convinced that if we had not gone to a policy of allowing grasses and herbs to grow between our vines to absorb excess water, we would have had a disaster. The north wind also helped enormously as it dried what rot there was and helped to concentrate the fruit as well. We even had a few vineyards with essentially no sorting required. We began picking on the 27th of September and brought in pretty good if not truly excellent sugars as chaptalization was typically between .5 and 1% for each wine. I was very happy with our triage work in those vineyards that required it but just to be absolutely sure that there was nothing questionable in any of our wines, I did a full week of lees settling. The color and dry extract weren't easy to extract either so I did a 24 hour post-fermentation heating to 40Â° C to fix the color. Yields were better in 2008 for the 1ers and grands crus than in 2007 but not as good for the villages wines. I love the '07s but I think the '08s have a bit more overall potential." Lachaux mentioned that he had relatively normal malos, which is highly unusual for the vintage so I asked why that might have been, especially because his cellar is no warmer than average. His explanation is worth repeating because I'm sure that there is something to it as a general observation. He told me that another reason that he did such an extended lees settling (débourbage) was to avoid having to dose the new wine so heavily with SO2 because of rot fears. Sulfur is not only an anti-oxidant but it also protects wine against bacteria but this is a two-edged sword because helpful bacteria, such as those that initiate the malolactic fermentation are also inhibited. Thus, in many cellars the malos are necessarily more extended than usual.