The Lafon 2006 Meursault Genevrieres – all but two of its six and a half barrels from 60 year-old vines – exudes aromas of hyacinth, honeysuckle, apple blossom, lime, and quince; exhibits a remarkable clarity and striking interplay of Chablis-like iodine and saline savor and a hint of peach kernel bitterness playing against pure ripe orchard fruit and nut oils; and finishes ravishingly floral, pure in fruit, refreshing, and utterly insistent in its diverse mineral expressions. While consuming this extraordinary wine in its youth would be no crime, I would anticipate at least a decade’s worth of further interest to emerge from bottle. The intensely floral and herbal – and for the vintage surprisingly refreshing – 2005 is tightly-stitched, palpable chalky, and age-worthy, reminding me slightly of a great Cotat Sancerre.
Like his neighbor Jean-Marc Roulot, Benoit Ente in Puligny, and a few others, Dominique Lafon obtained authorization to begin picking several days ahead of the official ban de vendange. He set his crew to work over the weekend, and was finished already on the 20th of September. The Perrieres, picked first, reached 13.8% alcohol, but all of the other wines weighed in at lower levels. Lafon insisted – and his wines testified – that the Chardonnay grapes were botrytis free, and he characterized the lees as excellent in quality and practiced “l(fā)ess settling than I did in the past.” That restraint – along with bright acids and pronounced minerality – makes for a richness that often expresses itself other than in creaminess. As these wines evolved, Lafon became increasingly enthusiastic about them, and I found them much more expressive on the eve of bottling than they had been in late 2007. Incidentally, the sickly vines in Lafon’s Desiree vineyard that have given so much bottled pleasure over the years gave their last in the beautifully refined, bittersweet, and for the vintage unusually delicate and creamy 2005. “It tastes as though the vines knew they were going to be pulled out,” was Lafon’s valediction.
A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers), fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70; A Daniel Johnnes Selection imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY, tel. (516) 677 9300; Classic Wine Imports, Norwood, MA, tel. (781) 352 1100; Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA, tel. (510) 559 1040
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