Domaine Arnoux-Lachaux has been in Vosne-Romanée since 1858. Charles Lachaux, the sixth generation of his family, has run it since 2012, alongside a separate label under his own name. He farms biodynamically, toward a single end: wine that tastes of its site and little else. The vines grow tall and untrimmed through the season, the rows are worked by horse, and pruning follows the natural flow of the sap. Fermentation proceeds with whole clusters and indigenous yeasts, maceration is brief, and pressing is vertical and gentle. With 2022, Charles retired oak from the cellar entirely, aging every wine in Clayver — the neutral sandstone vessels that breathe without contributing flavor — so that site, not cooperage, sets the character of each wine. He has said he wants Arnoux-Lachaux to stand beside Leroy, and his methods make clear that he means it.
Les Suchots sits on the Flagey side of Vosne, hemmed by Romanée-Saint-Vivant and Richebourg to the south and the Echezeaux climats to the north. Arnoux-Lachaux's parcel lies at the very top of the slope, in the unofficial lieu-dit the Lachaux family and a few neighbors have long called Grands Suchots, a name used to set their high-ground fruit apart from the lesser ground below. The vines are roughly seventy years old.
The wine is pure Vosne perfume: black cherry and raspberry lifted by violet and the warm, sweet-spice signature of the village, reading here as clove and sandalwood. The texture is sensual and silky across the mid-palate, with a finish that seems to fade and then lingers far longer than you expect. Cellar it from 2028 through 2038.