The village of Vosne-Romanée is located at the heart of the Côte de Nuits, between Vougeot and Nuits-Saint-Georges. It is at an ideal altitude for the vines (around 250 metres above sea level), and covers a little over 150 hectares. The soils have a high limestone and clay content. Fruit is sourced from a selection of old vines. The grapes are hand picked in September and put into small perforated boxes. Patriat has two sorting tables, with 10 people per table, looking for any grape that isn't fit to go into the fermenting vat. For reds, he de-stems completely (''stems are 80% water and 20% bad tannins - I hate them''), and returns the whole, uncrushed grapes into the boxes into which they were picked (by hand, of course) and then tips them into open wooden foudres. No yeasts, enzymes or tannins are added, to avoid altering the character of the must. The cold soak lasted for 5-6 days. Patriat doesn't plunge during this first week, as he thinks only bitter tannins are extracted at this stage. Once fermentation starts, the cap is plunged by foot (''I like the results,'' he says with a shrug). Maceration lasted for 3 weeks. The wine was matured in barrel for sixteen months (less than 20% new oak). The wine is lightly filtered before bottling.
