2012 Champy Vosne-Romanee Premier Cru Les Suchots 750 ml

Collectors were on high alert once the 2012 Burgundy harvests were in and the juice bottled: The wines were spectacular, age-worthy specimens, and the supply was tantalizingly low. Between 2012 and 2013, both historically low-yield, Champy winemaker Dimitri Bazas (a protégé of Burgundy legend Henri Boillot) estimates they lost one full vintage in terms of production. It’s the kind of year that’s dismal for wineries’ bottom lines, yet of such extraordinary quality that critics can’t help but celebrate.
 
Antonio Galloni called the 2012s “undeniably thrilling,” while Wine Spectator hailed the 95-point vintage’s “dense, concentrated reds, with pure fruit, elegance, and freshness,” rivaling the classic red Burgundy year of 2009. The vintage was universally praised for its site transparency, yielding some of the purest expressions of various Côte de Nuits villages in years.
 
Thanks to that expressiveness, Burgundy’s oldest negociant, Champy, produced an absolutely classic “Les Suchots” off a 1.1-acre plot that belongs in the cellar of every serious collector. A Premier Cru vineyard in Vosne-Romanée, rich in marly clay soils, it is considered next in line for elevation to Grand Cru status. “Les Suchots” is bordered on the south by renowned Grand Crus Romanée-Saint-Vivant and Richebourg (both primarily owned by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti), and on the north by another Grand Cru, Echezeaux. Champy’s plot sits at the top of the vineyard’s slope, where vines are stressed to the hilt, infusing Pinot with an ethereal mix of mouthwatering floral concentration and calcareous minerality.
 
Calling the 2012 effort “a winner,” Wine Spectator awarded 93 points, while Burghound’s Allen Meadows praised it as “seductively textured.” A ruby-hued rarity that will only grow more exquisite and priceless with age.