The king of the cellar this year is the 2020 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Cros Parantoux, a powerful but balanced wine that offers up aromas of cassis, cherries, sweet spices and dark chocolate. Full-bodied, layered and vibrant, it's a serious, structured wine with a concentrated core of fruit framed by firm but powdery tannins. Emmanuel Rouget and his son Guillaume were once again among the later pickers in 2020, as they were in 2019, opting to wait for what they felt was full physiological maturity, irrespective of accumulating sugars. Yields were low, and some of the wines are freakishly concentrated, with several surpassing 15% alcohol, and the Echézeaux, harvested on September 3, checks in at fully 16%. Rouget himself candidly describes them as outsize and atypical, and while there are a number of lovely wines in the range, my notes reflect the fact that I found several of questionable balance. (WK)

Note: from a .70 ha parcel of 55+ year old vines that for the last 5 years has been worked exclusively by horse; Rouget indicated that this was harvested at a potential alcohol level of 14.7% A slightly fresher and cooler nose displays its aromas of mocha, plum liqueur, exotic tea and sandalwood. There is almost painful intensity to the almost as dense, stony, tautly muscular and powerful flavors that possess a completely different texture before culminating in a bitter pit fruit-inflected finale that goes on and on. I would make the same observation here that this 2020 Cros is like no vintages I have ever seen from Rouget, yet it manages to 'work' anyway. *Burghound Outstanding!*