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 Hautes Maizières lies against the southern wall of the Clos de Vougeot on iron-rich clay-limestone, a site classified as premier cru in the past and still counted among Vosne's finest village lieux-dits. Arnoux-Lachaux works a little over half a hectare here, from vines planted in the 1950s.
Brooding black cherry and cassis lead, with dried violet and a ferrous, bloody note that traces back to the iron in the soil. Dense and layered, it is structured to reward cellaring through 2034.