Written in the Ground

A foundling, a village, three generations

The Cathiard story starts with a foundling from Savoie who came to Vosne-Romanée in the 1920s, worked the vines of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Lamarche, and in 1930 bought a first parcel of his own. His son André ran the estate from 1969. Sylvain followed, and in 2006 his son Sébastien joined; since 2011 the domaine has been his.

Under Sébastien it has grown from a jewel box of Vosne premiers crus into a 12.5 hectare estate, with new holdings in the Hautes-Côtes de Nuits. The heart has not moved: Aux Malconsorts, En Orveaux, Les Suchots, Aux Reignots and a few rows of Romanée-Saint-Vivant planted in 1919. The house style is polished, precise and unmistakably Vosne.

The hardest season in a generation

2024 was the hardest Burgundy season in a generation. Flowering in the Côte de Nuits came cold and wet, mildew arrived early and followed through a sodden spring, and some growers counted 38 days of rain across May and June. Across the region, yields fell to their lowest since 1981. In Vosne-Romanée and Nuits-Saint-Georges many growers lost up to 80 or 90 per cent of a normal crop, and 12 to 15 hectolitres per hectare was a common outcome.

What survived is precious for a reason. Grapes ripened slowly, Cathiard's wines came in between 11 and 12 per cent natural alcohol, and the reds that came through are classical, transparent and driven by place. Critics have read the vintage in the Côte de Nuits as one of delicacy rather than power. In the right hands, that is exactly the Burgundy our members chase.

• 45 hl/ha · Aux Malconsorts, the most generous yield in the cellar
• 27 hl/ha · the domaine's average across 2024
• 0.74 ha · Malconsorts vines, planted in the early 1970s
• 1981 · the last time Burgundy picked so little

Compromise in the line-up, not in the glass

Sébastien Cathiard sums up 2024 as a year of timely decisions and compromise. The compromise shows in the line-up, not in the glass. The two Nuits-Saint-Georges premiers crus, Aux Thorey and Aux Murgers, were too small to stand alone and were combined into a single Nuits 1er Cru. There is no Coteaux Bourguignons. The Romanée-Saint-Vivant, which gives three barrels in a good year, was made in quantities too small to show.

The decisions show in the wines. Lighter extraction, judged oak and a cellar that let the fruit speak. The result is a vintage of clarity: Cathiard's silk, with the volume turned down and the detail turned up.

Small in volume, complete in character. 2024 is Cathiard written in fine pen.

The Wines

Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru Aux Malconsorts · The flagship · Vinous 95 · Wine Advocate 94

The upper slope of Malconsorts, set against La Tâche, gave the estate its fullest crop of the year. Wild strawberry, raspberry, iris and crushed stone, with fine tannins and vibrant acidity. Critics single it out as the most harmonious wine in the range and one of the slowest to evolve: a decade in the cellar will be repaid.

Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru · A one-off

Aux Thorey and Aux Murgers in one bottle, a cuvée that exists only because of 2024. Two complementary premiers crus, read together for the first time. For a member, a rare and singular bottling.

Romanée-Saint-Vivant Grand Cru · The rarest of the range

So little was made that it was not shown to the critics. The most confidential wine of the vintage, from 0.17 hectares of vines planted in 1919, in the grand cru that defines finesse in Vosne.

Vosne-Romanée · The benchmark village · Inside Burgundy 89–91

Assembled from several lieux-dits across the village, it carries the classic Vosne spice with peony, plum and cherry. Saline and gourmand, with a structured finish: the clearest window onto the house in 2024.

Hautes-Côtes de Nuits Aux Chaumes and Les Dames Huguettes · The new frontier

Sébastien's expansion onto the plateau above Nuits-Saint-Georges. Les Dames Huguettes, 1.45 hectares of 35 to 55 year old vines, rises from thin, limestone-rich soils and delivered again in 2024: mineral, cool and built to age a few years. The most accessible way into Cathiard, made with the same hand.

Why Collect 2024

Great Burgundy is defined by its producers as much as its vintages, and 2024 separated them sharply. Cathiard is among the domaines that made the year work, with wines of poise and transparency that critics place among the finest reds of the Côte de Nuits. Quantities are a fraction of normal, and some cuvées will never be repeated. These are the bottles that, in fifteen years, will show what a great Vosne grower did in a year that tested everyone.

Sylvain Cathiard 2024, available to members on Crurated, released directly by the domaine.