2022 Domaine du Couvent Les Barreaux Vosne-Romanee

Les Barreaux is one of the last parcels Domaine du Couvent picks every year. It sits high on the steep slope above Vosne-Romanée, where Philippe Chéron waits for late-season ripening while the rest of the estate comes in. The whole vineyard is just 0.71 hectares, carved into thin, sandy soils over white oolite limestone—a slope so severe that machinery is dangerous and every single task must be done by hand.

What stands there took nearly fifty years to assemble. Fifteen separate planting campaigns ran from 1929 through 1977, giving the parcel an average vine age over fifty years across four distinct eras of Burgundian plant material. Planted at a dense 12,000 vines per hectare, part of the plot faces north for natural acidity while the rest faces due east for sun and ripeness. Both exposures are harvested together and fermented in the same tank.

Destemmed, cold-macerated, and fermented on wild yeasts in temperature-controlled cement, the 2022 spent 15 months in French oak (20% new). The style is straight, pure, and weightless; delivering red plum, purple fruit, crushed stone, and white pepper over a long, quiet finish. This is high-elevation Vosne-Romanée at its absolute cleanest and most precise.