Vosne Romanée Les Suchots

I am writing this post because of all the vineyards in Vosne, Les Suchots is the one that draws the most divergent opinions. This is a vineyard on which very knowledgable people have very different views.

On the one hand, Les Suchots is often listed among the very best Premier Crus in Vosne Romanee. This reverence was certainly the case historically, perhaps because its physical position between such prestigious crus as Romanee St Vivant and Richebourg on one side and Exchezeaux on the other implied an elevated quality. 

It is certainly a large vineyard at just above 13 hectares with twenty or so growers.  

But when the owner of a very prestigious Domaine in the village who themselves own a plot in the lower section of the vineyard  call the wine from Les Suchots  “uninteresting” or ‘boring” you have to stop and think. And this is what prompted me to write this note. Here is a vineyard of the highest reputation which perhaps does not merit such esteem. Though my sample is quite small, I do not myself recall drinking a Suchots that has really moved me.

The explanation at least in part must lie in the size of the vineyard - fully 13 hectares - and that it actually has a variety of terroir not all of which perhaps are the very best. At the very top is a triangular parcel that apparently used to be called “Les Grand Suchots” - the parcel currently owned by the Domaine Arnoux (who are reinstating that designation on the label). This wine is universally considered the standard bearer for Les Suchots and fetches prices in the market not far from Grand Crus. Meadows notes when tasting at the Domaine they present this wine after both the Domaine’s Echezeaux and the Clos Vougeot. But this seems to be the only wine from Les Suchots that really garners this level of praise - and this may be because of extraordinary plant material in this particular plot that always gives small berries rather than the merits of the underlying terroir. 

The lower part of the vineyard was long been recognized as being not as fine as the top, as evidenced by a formal designation by the Agriculture Committee of Beaune in 1861. Not only is it quite low in elevation but there is a distinct valley / depression in the middle of the lowest part - what the French call a “cuvette” which not only collects water, so promoting high yields, but means the slope on either side is influenced to lean slightly to the north or the south depending what side of this depression you parcel is located. Most growers with vines in this lower section - such as Amelie Berthaud - fully acknowledge that this is not the best part of Les Suchots. 

It is also not to the vineyard’s benefit that, other than in the clear case of Domaine Arnoux, Les Suchots is often not the best Vosne premier cru that that any particular vigneron produces. There may be a Beaux Monts or a Brûlée perhaps, whose qualities and stronger personality relegate the Suchots to being of slighly less interest. This competition within a lineup is enough to have Suchots lose a certain cachet. Perhaps that is most of it - Les Suchots is evidently a lovely wine and it ticks all the “boxes” (though detractors would point to a slight dropping off of flavor in the mid palate before the wine recovers as it moves towards its finish). Relative to the company it keeps in the cellars of the winemakers in the village, however, it lacks distinctive markers that would give it more personality or prompt anyone to consider it a favorite. It seldom really excites. 

What you are supposed to get from Les Suchots is consistently silky texture in the mouth  - more so than in the wines from, for example, Beaumonts or Malconsorts. There is more clay on these lower parts of the slope and correspondingly the fruit has good depth but always an elegance. There is spice and florals on the nose. It is in this sense very representative of what the wines from Vosne Romanee are assumed to taste like more so than any other Premier Cru from Vosne. And that perhaps also is its challenge. It is very representative of the ideal of Vosne-Romanee, without having any individual quality that expresses itself forcefully enough to really set it apart.

The picture below - a still shot from a video - is of Les Suchots, looking upslope from the eastern end. It shows the parcel in Les Suchots owned by Domaine Berthaut-Gerbet highlighted in blue, which I include only to illustrate the clear “dip” in the slope at the bottom of the vineyard.

Clos de Beze

The Clos de Beze is of course inseparably linked to the vineyard of Chambertin to its immediate south. Historically the Clos de Beze I have always felt as the ‘senior” of the two vineyards.  It was established earlier - in 630 no less. And by 640 it is believed a wall had been build around it. 1,350 vintages (even with a few gaps) makes for hallowed ground indeed ! The name Chambertin doesn’t appear in records until the thirteenth century, but for a long period prior to the twentieth century, the Chambertin name seems to have been used for both vineyards with the name Clos de Beze falling into disuse.  And of course the town attached the name of its then most famous vineyard - Chambertin - to its name in 1847. Jasper Morris informs that the Clos de Beze name was really revived by the AOC rules set in place in the 1930s, by which the identity of the Clos de Beze was re-established. Those rules also of course determined that the grapes from the Clos de Beze may be bottled as Chambertin if one choses but not the other way round. In practice however, no one with enough grapes in the Clos de Beze to allow for a separate bottling calls this wine Chambertin - it is always bottled as Clos de Beze. Which choice seems to reinforce the historical prominence of the Clos de Beze.

These tangled alignments almost oblige one to have a view as to which is preferred.  The vineyards are both separate but wholly linked. The reality though is that the wines are quite different and, within the context of Burgundian divisions, this difference is significant enough to be more than a matter of nuance. 

Others have articulated better than can I how the vineyards are different from the point of view of aspect and soils. I do not propose to repeat those observations except to say that Beze has a slight rise in its centre, which means that as you walk north from Chambertin, the Clos de Beze slope inclines slightly to the south and as you walk on. as you approach Mazis Chambertin, the Clos de Beze slope inclines slightly to the north. When I last walked its length I found it quite uneven in aspect. The top part of Chambertin is right up against the trees which makes this part of the vineyard more humid, whereas the Clos de Beze has the Belair vineyard above it before you reach the trees.  The Combe Giscard impacts to cool the southern part of Chambertin. The Clos de Beze does not benefit from this.  

What I think is important to understand is that the Clos de Beze should be the more elegant wine, and sufficiently elegant as not really to merit the epithet “The Wine of Kings’.  It should not be a “masculine” wine but a wine of fine aromatics and complex red fruit. It should absolutely be less substantial and powerful than the Clos de la Roche in Morey Saint Denis, for example. And it should also be less powerful than Chambertin itself. What can confuse perhaps in this assessment is that the vineyard can of course produce bigger more powerful wines if the winemaker so desires. Between Faiveley and Jadot who produce fairly powerful wines and Damoy, who pick so extremely late as to preclude great elegance in the resulting wine, from 6.5 of the overall 15 hectares wines of real elegance are not produced.  In practice one is looking to Rousseau, Drouhin Larouse and Bruno Clair as standard bearers for the more graceful style of wine that the vineyard is known for, and Maison Drouhin who actually buy a lot of grapes for their cuvee. 

I have not drunk enough to know but I am told that of the two the Clos de Beze is often preferred when young but that Chambertin normally excels over the very long haul.  

It may be the case that Chambertin performs slightly better in warmer years - because of the cooling influences of the Combe - whereas the Clos de Beze does better in cooler years. This is the view of Eric Rousseau, who would know.

For my part I buy a few bottles of Bruno Clair’s interpretation when I can.  But none of these wines are any longer at a price point that I can readily afford. Drinking any Grand Cru Burgundy induces in me a sense of great privilege. But for me, that sensation is never more strongly felt that when I sit before a glass of Clos de Beze. It is surely the holy of the holies.

I am particularly indebted to Jasper Morris for his insight on the Clos de Beze, which was the subject of a podcast he presented through 67 Pall Mall on October 13, 2020. 

Villero

Villero is another vineyard that in my view has a big presence in the Barolo region.  Not only is it quite large at just over 22 ha, it is fairly centrally located in the region. It is comprised of really quite a uniform and expansive south west facing slope, though sloping slightly more towards the west at each end. It looks like it should be a fine vineyard. Being very visible from much of the northern parts of Monforte, most of Barolo and the eastern slopes of La Morra, Villero acts as something of a landmark to those starting to get to know the region’s many vineyards. As importantly, many of the best known growers in the region own parcels in Villero.  So it is a wine quite often tasted when visiting cellars. It is thus a vineyard with both a physical prominence and one which produces a wine frequently sampled when visiting the region. 

It is also the vineyard that according to Alex Sanchez from Brovia produces a wine that is really very typical of all the qualities one looks for in a Barolo.  It is very “representative” of the wine of the region, with all a typical Barolo’s defining components present but none in excess. The aromatics are floral - violets and roses but also licorice and some minerality. There are balsamic notes also. The palate is full and quite firm, leading to sweet and round tannin with considerable presence. The vineyard has more compacted clay in its soil than most in Castiglione Falletto - and a good deal less sand - and there is no doubt it can get hot as it benefits from the full sun of the afternoon. The result is a wine almost always with a fully ripe presence in the mouth but which  can lean towards being overly round on the palate in the warmer years.  Normally yields are allowed to run up a bit so as to compensate for this ease of ripeness. The canopies are managed accordingly. Yet this is the wine’s personality. There will never be the greatest finesse. You don’t expect to be overwhelmed by elegance.

I know some - Greg dal Piaz for one, who I respect immensely - who find the wine a touch simple. Villero is a good wine from which to start one’s experience in learning Barolo knowing that there are more interesting vineyards in the MGA firmament to discover later. Villero is ‘easy” to understand. It is a good place to start the journey. “Training wheels wine” he calls it. Fair enough. But I don’t think Villero is therefore necessarily a simple wine. I don’t find it lacks identity merely because it has no distinguishing markers. The very absence of particular defining qualities allows Villero to serve as a benchmark in the sense that one can compare wines from other vineyards to those from Villero in a way that can be consistent and thus useful.

Others - notably Luca Currado from the Vietti winery - have said that Villero doesn’t easily give up its finest terroir, which accordingly does not fully present itself in the wine every year.  So they only bottle the wine separately in years where they feel the conditions were absolutely right - and they then find the wine needs longer than normal in barrels to develop these otherwise elusive distinctive qualities that define Villero’s beauty. Perhaps they feel in less climatically suitable years the wine from their particular parcel may not meet the highest expectations.  In these years they declassify it. Which is an indictment that commands some respect from someone who knows the vineyards of Barolo as well as Luca Currado. 

Yet to say the wine has no particular distinguishing features (in the same way, incidentally that the wines of Beaune are of representative of red Burgundy from the Cote de Beaune more broadly) nor reaches it heights of individual expression every year, is surely not to say the wine cannot frequently be wonderful and full of personality.  I am still feeling my way into an understanding of the vineyard, but I have always found Villero to present itself as a wine that lacks for nothing that would make me wish to drink less of it. And I have found it speaks quite strongly of where it came from, which I value in a wine. What is not to like ? 

Brunate

Brunate I always think as being a vineyard with a big identity. A fairly contiguous slope, visible from afar, it seems to anchor this part of the Barolo landscape.  Brunate is the middle of a trio of largely south facing slopes, with Rocche Annunziata to the north and Cerrequio to the south. Brunate is the most prominent of these slopes and is angled in such a way as to draw the eyes up to La Morra. There is also a lovely walk up the narrow road that ascends along the top of the ridge from Boggione’s vines at the very eastern low point (pictured) up towards La Serra, with the Brunate vineyard stretching out on your left. The colorful chapel belonging to Ceretto sits half way up. That walk is totally worth the effort.  

What you get in Brunate is not just an imposing vineyard of great historical importance but one that is shared by many of most prestigious growers in the whole region. So many growers owning parcels in the same vineyard gives a vineyard a certain prominence - and is quite rare in Barolo. Villero is the other good example. You get to witness how differing winemaking styles impact on a singular vineyard, resulting in varying interpretations in the bottle. Although there is an undoubted underlying common theme to the wines of Brunate, there are also manifest differences in the wines sourced from its grapes. You will always find expressive aromatics, darker fruit with some depth on the palate, some considerable power, a good acidity and tannins that are silky but decidedly present. The wine marries some austerity with lovely aromatics. These characteristics are pretty constant. And yet there are many growers to chose from in identifying a personal preference with enough difference between them to merit undertaking the pleasant journey of discovery in making that selection.

The differences in altitude along its length is the key to understanding Brunate. It is helpful to break this elevation into three sections. The middle section - between about 250 and 400 meters - where Marcarini and Cerretto share 9 hectares of vines, has the longest history and no doubt the earliest fame. Here we find classic Brunate marrying the very present soft round fruits of La Morra with a particular austerity and power.  Roses on the aromatically expressive nose. Some small black fruits and brown spice on the palate perhaps.  The Ceretto wine never lacking in concentration of fruit or fullness on the palate. 

The lower section - further to the east - is among others, home to the vines of both Rinaldi’s.  It can get warm down here. Parts face true south. The soil too may be a little different. One foot in Barolo township. Traditional winemaking prevails in this section - longer fermentations giving fruit and floral flavors more complicated by tertiary notes of balsamic and tobacco and much held in reserve.

The uppermost section is home to those making wine in the more modern style - with the exceptional of Podere Oddero.  So the winemakers signature is quite evident - as exemplified by Mauro Marengo (from whom Altare’s wine is also sourced), Voerzio and Vietti. It is slightly cooler up here - especially at night - and windier. The wines as a result perhaps a touch more elegant. 

Musigny

Musigny is the vineyard over which you can spread my ashes. 

From my first acquaintance with Burgundy it always struck me that of all its famous sites, Musigny represented in purest form the qualities that everyone most admires about Burgundy. The wine has the capacity to deliver real authority in an almost weightless frame. How can it produce so many fireworks in the mouth and have such astonishing length and yet have such ethereal silky elegance at the same time ?  This is the wonder that draws so many to adore Burgundy over all other wines and here in Musigny that magic expresses itself with the clearest definition of all. There are some vineyards one could ague are equally great in different ways. But Musigny to me is simply the most Burgundian vineyard of all.

On my first visit to Burgundy 1n 1994 I did something I would not do now - I asked several of the  growers I met where they would most like to own a plot if they could have a parcel simply anywhere - and so often the response was Musigny.  Roselyn Seysses said Richebourg and related to me that her husband Jacques would say Chambertin but I recall no other exceptions.  Everybody else said Musigny. 

It is simply an astonishing vineyard. Honestly, it does not look so special.  Its rather a bland slope. But whenever I have drunk it I have felt a certain awe.  I have a certain reverance for it, as you can tell. And although a small number of bottles over the years have not fully risen to my expectations, I have yet to drink one that has not reminded me that this is no ordinary place.  It always restores my faith in Burgundy.  

If pressed I would probably put Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses in the same category but I find Musigny more majestic, more insistent in its length and more “serious”, whereas Amoureuses I find perhaps a little more sensual and overtly aromatic. 

Cannubi

These posts on individual vineyards are not intended to be comprehensive.  Rather they are meant to impart my personal response when drinking wine from a vineyard that has some special meaning to me. 

Cannubi is a vineyard of considerable prestige - probably the most in all of Italy. Witness - 

• The name Cannubi first appears on a bottle of wine in 1752 (though it is not clear where the contents came from). The name has been important to the region for a long time.

• Some proprietors have set up signage along the road at the base of their plots, identifying their portion of the vineyard. This is rare in the Langhe.

• James Suckling made a 30 minute movie in 2013 about the vineyard, during which several growers who own parcels in Cannubi describe the moment of signing the purchase agreement in otherworldly terms - “like touching the stars with my hand” (Sandrone) or “like I had touched heaven with my fingertips” (Chiarlo).

That the name Cannubi carries a reputation in Barolo is further evidenced of course by the lengths to which the Marchesi di Barolo have gone in recent years to maintain the expanded territory that is entitled to use the name.  At issue is whether wines on three semi-contiguous but adjacent hills - and four named MGA vineyards - can label their wines simply as Cannubi or must include a suffix that identifies the wine as coming from one of these other slopes. Any vineyard worth litigating about must be special.  The outcome will surely be determined by whether there is a need for some conformity in the wine coming from the site as defined (and if so how much) or whether it is enough that one grower used the name “Cannubi” expansively for more than 100 years to include wine from an adjacent slope (in particular the Cannubi Muscatel MGA) from which wines with a rather different profile are produced.  Whether the wines actually taste the same is a contentious and subjective issue. How alike must the wines taste ? What if Valletta and San Lorenzo taste enough like the central part of the Cannubi hill but Muscatel and Boschis do not ? Are they all more similar than they are different ? To be sure, I have not drunk widely enough to know. But it does seem the hill to the north - known as Cannubi Boschis MGA - is unmistakedly a separate terrain if you have ever tried to walk between the two. There is a deep gully between them. The hill of Boschis is lower in altitude, especially in its northern section, and with more clay in the soil, resulting in wines that are richer and with more polished tannins. Very fine in their own right, but not quite the same. Yet if this were Burgundy would not historical naming custom carry sway ? Many single vineyards in Burgundy have quite different soils.  

Looking towards the south from the middle part of Cannubi central - the small amphitheater in the foreground. The small house mid frame on the very left at the bottom of the slope on the road is Burlotto’s guesthouse, with his vines immediately above in Cannubi Valletta, so named because of the shallow valley running from top to bottom represented by the straight path. At the top of the frame the small triangular parcel of vines is in Cannubi San Lorenzo, which is in effect the highest part of Cannubi Valletta. Still shot from a video made by Arnaldo Rivera - part of a series ‘Le Grande Vigne”, which I highly recommend for a brief aerial visual tour of the vineyard..

The most important point perhaps is that even if the reputational identity of the central part of the hill is compromised by the Cannubi name being applied more widely, we the consumer today are not influenced by this. Thanks to the work of Alessandro Masnaghetti, we know where each grower’s plot is located.   For example, we know the excellent wines of Sandrone or Francesco Rinaldi (mostly) or Fenocchio all come from the Boschis hill and the wines reflect this particular terroir. And the market finds it own price for each wine. 

The vineyard meets all the criteria that are required of a great site - ideal height, steepness of slope, orientation and soils. The central part of the hill is indeed small - just under 20 hectares, a quarter which slips over the “wrong” side of the hill. If you are energetic you can walk from end to end in just a few minutes.  But it is absolutely not a uniform slope and there are frequent variations of exposure along its length. So it’s quite hard to photograph in its entirety from ground level. There is a depression in its centre that creates a small amphitheater. It doesn’t have the even harmonious slope that makes a vineyard visually spectacular. See the pictures above and below.

The central part of Cannubi looking from above Cannubi Boschis

What gives Cannubi its identity is the high proportion of sand sized particles in the soil. Historically of course this meant that the vineyard drained well and so could produce viable wines in wet years. Being relatively low it is quite warm and ripens perhaps a week earlier than its neighbors. I have tasted it very seldom - and what I have tasted is mostly Burlotto’s interpretation. The sand seems to give a clean definition to the fruit aromas and tannins that are long but sharp.  The overall effect is a wine that is precise in its aromatic profile, without excess weight but with an austere and initially insistent structure on the back end that needs a long time to unfurl. There is elegance and never an overwhelming power - to which the sand contributes - with a silky texture leading to a long somewhat strict finish. The fruit - apparently - can be both elegant and sensual at the same time. The tannins never so present as to give the sensation of scale or enormity to the wine. The presence of sand seems pretty consistent in its effect - with a high proportion of sand across different communes in the vineyards of Ravera di Monforte, Margheria and Rocche di Castiglione giving the resulting wines similar characteristics. Perhaps no coincidence that I love all of these particular vineyards especially.

Over the full five MGAs there are between 25 and 28 growers permitted to make a maximum in total of about 250,000 bottles of wine from each harvest. Some growers - notably Maria Teresa Mascarello and the Rinaldi sisters blend their grapes with other vineyards.  The Cannubi labelled wine that sells for the highest price of late is I believe Burlotto’s interpretation - which actually comes from the Cannubi Valletta MGA. By his own admission, Fabio’s is not perhaps the best representation of the central part of Cannubi since his plot faces more directly to the east, and so is slightly cooler. Barale’s piece in the main section is unfortunately still from young vines.  I am told Chiara Boschis’s wine is now less subjected to new oak than previously, but I have only had it once at the Cantina.   Scavino, Altare, Einaudi, Chiarlo and Brezza among others have good plots in the central section. These wines may be of interest but I have not tasted them, with the exception of older vintages of Scavino which showed some oak.

Cannubi can also be found spelled Canubbi, apparently to assure the stress is on the letter “u”. According to the team at Chiarlo, the word means “wedding” - referring perhaps as they see it to the merging of soils in the vineyard.

The northern end of the central hill of Cannubi looking from Francesco Rinaldi’s vines in Cannubi Boschis on a rainy day, showing the separation between the hills.

Cannubi from the southern end. The foreground, up the the slight shift in exposition, is Cannubi Valletta. The netted section is Altare’s rented parcel in Cannubi