2012 - Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Suchots, Sylvain Cathiard

The 2012 Vosne-Romanee 1er Cru Les Suchots comes from a tiny 0.17-hectare parcel of 45-year old vines. It has a very open and generous bouquet with brambly red berry fruit and rose petals. – all very well defined. The palate is medium-bodied with crisp, succulent tannins, hints of coffee bean infusing the red fruit and lending exoticism towards the finish. Punchy and ravishing: this is what you want for your Suchots. This publication is not faultless, though we all strive to be so. But I must confess that I was flabbergasted when I searched the Wine Advocate database to find no reviews for Sylvain Cathiard’s wines since the mid-noughties. The reason is that here in the UK, Cathiard’s reputation has been ascendant for over a decade and the name is presently revered as one of the top exponents of Vosne-Romanee. The domaine was established in the 1930s when their fruit was sold to local negoce as was common back in those days. According to Clive Coates, Alfred Cathiard moved to Burgundy in 1901 and worked at Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and yes, in case you were wondering, the family is distantly related to the Cathiard’s chez Chateau Smith Haut-Lafitte. Sylvain’s father Andre ran the estate from 1969 until 1985, his son becoming more involved in the latter years. He began to rent his vines from his family supplemented by fermage agreements, before taking over his father’s own vines when Andre retired in 1995. The wines during the early 1990s were a little rustic, but throughout that decade Sylvain honed his style, producing refined, intense, terroir-driven wines that used healthy percentages of quality new oak to lend them a modern sheen, not unlike say Lalou Bize-Leroy nearby. This is when I myself became acquainted with the name, courtesy of my girlfriend (now wife) who was working for one of his UK distributors, Berry Brothers & Rudd. Back in the late 1990s, you could pick up one of his premier crus for around twenty quid and that was before her staff discount.

Bright medium red. Deeply pitched nose combines smoke, stony minerality and cocoa powder. Concentrated, silky, seamless and sweet; showing less minerality today than the Orveaux but this is more floral and fine-grained in the middle. The sweet finish builds slowly, displaying excellent length and spice character before oak tannins clamp down. Boasts excellent potential but this wine will need time to absorb some of its new oak.