Offering up a youthfully primary bouquet of cherries, wild berries, plums, sweet soil tones and spices, the 2020 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts is full-bodied, rich and muscular, with an ample, multidimensional mid-palate framed by fine but firm tannins. As ever, it's one of the least-evolved wines in the cellar.

The most reserved premier cru in the cellar is, as usual, the 2018 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts. Opening in the glass with scents of dark berry fruit, plums, exotic spices, dark chocolate, smoked meats and burning embers, it's medium to full-bodied, deep and muscular, displaying exquisite structural refinement and superb concentration, concluding with a long, fragrant finish. There are 16 barrels this year.

Cathiard's emblematic cuvée, the 2017 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts is also a great success, unfurling in the glass with aromas of cherries, licorice, spices, dark berries, grilled game and an elegant framing of new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, deep and fleshy, with a broad-shouldered chassis of velvety structuring tannin, considerable concentration and a long, expansive finish. Due to a late malolactic, this was one of the more primary wines in the cellar, but its immense potential is impossible to miss.

The 2016 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts was showing a little more reduction on the nose compared to the other cuvées. Underneath though, lies intense and quite voluminous red berry fruit, later rose petals, a touch of woodland coming through. The palate is medium-bodied with quite high-toned entry, vivacious blueberry fruit mixed with cassis and orange pith, then closing in quickly on a structure and grippy finish (it finished its malolactic not until September so this would explain this). It will require several years in bottle. It is not quite as audacious as the 2015 Malconsorts, but certainly a prince to that king.