2023 Joseph Drouhin, Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru, Les Petits Monts

The 2023 Vosne-Romanée Les Petits Monts 1er Cru, owned by Véronique Drouhin herself, has a wonderful, minerally bouquet that delivers all the transparency and Pinoté you want from this propitious vineyard. The palate is medium-bodied with filigree tannins, a wonderful sense of symmetry and a precise, quite spicy/green pepper-tinged finish that lingers in the mouth. This is within touching distance of the superlative 2022.

Always one of the highlights of the range, the 2023 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Petits Monts is a beauty, bursting with notes of sweet red berries, plums, rose petals, orange zest and spices. Medium to full-bodied, ample and suave, it's perfumed and refined, with lively acids and a saline finish.

Cask sample. Smells like freshly peeled red-apple skin. Fragrant, herbal, wild mint and wild oregano. Sumac and hibiscus. Really taut tannins, which feel as if they might have been cut from stone and fashioned into sails. The first Drouhin 2023 red with obvious minerality, this is singing from the mountain tops. So much stone. So much life. Exploding with energy. (TC)