Scents of dark chocolate, sweet berry fruit, warm spices, peonies and preserved orange introduce the 2019 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots, a medium to full-bodied, layered and fleshy wine that's supple and enveloping, with an ample core of fruit, melting tannins and a bright, precise finish. This is very promising.

One of the highlights of the range this year is the 2018 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots, a lovely wine in the making that wafts from the glass with scents of cassis, plums and woodsmoke mingled with dark chocolate and rich soil tones. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, velvety and enveloping, with fine concentration and attractive energy that distinguishes it as especially promising. The finish is long and perfumed.

From a parcel of vines right by the village cemetery, the 2017 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots wafts from the glass with aromas of cassis, wild plums, spices, potpourri, beetroot and French roast. On the palate, it's medium to full-bodied, sumptuous and layered, with a generous core of fruit that largely conceals its melting tannins, juicy acids, and a long, tangy and wood-inflected finish.

The 2016 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots has a well-defined bouquet with a little more opulence than fellow Suchots encountered from other growers, with scents of black cherries, peppermint and a touch of raspberry preserve developing with time. The palate is very well proportioned with good density, weighty in the mouth, quite savory (again) toward the finish with a tang of blood orange. Not bad at all, although I have a preference for the 2015 last year.

Tasted blind, the 2015 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Les Suchots wafts from the glass with notes of ripe dark berries, Asian spices, smoked duck and a lavish application of creamy high-quality new oak. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and multidimensional, with succulent balancing acids and a generous endowment of fine-grained structuring tannin that makes it one of the more shut down of Liger-Belair's premiers crus. This is carrying quite a bit of overt new oak, but it has the substance to integrate it with some bottle age.