Dom. Arnoux-Lachaux
Echezeaux Grand Cru
Vosne-Romanee
2009

The producer

The domaine was called Robert Arnoux until Robert’s retirement in 1987 when son-in-law Pascal Lachaux took over. Fast forward to 2007 when the label was changed to include both family names, Arnoux-Lachaux. 33-year-old Charles Lachaux (son of Pascal) joined his father in 2011 focusing first on winemaking and later, on the vineyards – both of which he has improved and modernized immensely.

Today the domaine has 14 hectares spread across Gevrey, Vosne, Nuits and Chambolle, with the pinnacle of the production arguably being the 0.35-hectare parcel in Romanee-Saint-Vivant – a wine which is extremely difficult to find and priced accordingly. Charles is very hands on in the vineyard, using organic techniques but without certification, and uses very little new oak in the cellar – preferring to let the quality of the fruit material speak for itself.  

The wine

Arnoux-Lacahux owns land in four Echezeaux lieux-dits – in total 0.88 hectares of vines planted in the 1930s. Farming is organic with some biodynamic methods, and the fruit is 100% whole-cluster pressed, followed by indigenous yeast fermentation, and finally ageing for 14 months in up to 30% new oak barrels. A wine of vibrant red fruit fragrance, with a full body, dense texture, silky tannins, and a long taut finish.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.