The 2015 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ Gain has an attractive bouquet with walnut and subtle praline scents infiltrating the citrus fruit. There is certainly good intensity here. The palate is fresh and vibrant with crisp acidity, edgier than either of the Meursault premier crus from Bouchard and bridled with fine salinity on the slightly oaky finish that urges you back for another sip. Excellent - this is one of the picks from Bouchard Père this year.

The 2013 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru les Champs-Gain has a reserved, mineral-driven, well-defined bouquet that opens nicely with aeration. The palate is well balanced with citrus lemon, crabapple and fresh pear that segues into a focused, saline finish with hints of praline on the aftertaste. This is a well-crafted Puligny from the team.

Floral, white fruits, earth, citrus and gunflint aromas. Attractive richness and depth of honeyed, mineral and lemony fruit. Very classic, with lots of flavour and good length. Tasty.

From half each estate and purchased fruit, the Bouchard 2007 Puligny-Montrachet Champ Gain emphasizes a bitter-sweet combination of nut oils and peach kernel whose tenor suits the wines rich, caressing texture. Faintly toasty and vanillin notes creep in with similarly harmonious effect, and for all of its sumptuousness, this retains some genuine refreshment in its finish by way of peach flesh and primary citrus juiciness. There are only 200 cases (8 barrels) of this – a relatively small lot by Bouchard standards. I would anticipate it being with following for at least 5-7 years but it is hard to resist now, so – provided you can get your hands on some – why try? Philippe Prost’s late-August starting date for the 2007 white harvest reflects not simply the enormous acreage over which Bouchard holds sway. (In fact, they can muster correspondingly large forces and their gargantuan facility with its battery of presses can handle the harvest in ten days if need be.) It is also a function of assiduous yield control that promotes ripening, and of a professed interest in capturing freshness and vivacity. Furthermore, picking extended for 18 days, until mid-September, and most of the estate’s top sites were brought in near the end. And with the exception of a Pouilly-Fuisse rendered from contract fruit, none of the 2007 whites here were chaptalized. Most came in a bit over 13% alcohol and – as Prost asserts and his wines testify – with excellent phenolic maturity. Prost prefers to avoid sulfuring the fruit or must, letting it darken from oxidation during its period of skin contact and settling because, in his view, not only the color but the flavors bounce back as soon as the juice starts fermenting, and the resulting wine is both more expressive and more stable. “You know,” he says by way of general commentary on the evolution of Bouchard vinification, “a few years ago we were too concerned to be clean and clinical” with the result that “the wines were closed,” especially in their youth. No one could level that charge at the wines now, even if some are subtle and understated. The question now – just as at other Burgundy addresses – is how white wines from the last several vintages will age. Among many recent changes made at Bouchard in the name (dare I interject, “hope”?) of reducing instances of premature oxidation and bottle variation are blanketing the assembled wines in nitrogen, a sophisticated new bottling protocol, and the use of Diam (specially treated composite) corks for village level wines and dense corks from Sardinia for crus. Importer: Henriot, Inc, New York, NY; tel. (212) 605-6767

Bouchard’s 2006 Puligny-Montrachet Champ Gain displays exotic coconut, vanilla, and tropical fruit scents; turns nutty and pithy on the palate, while remaining juicy; and finishes with an intriguing counterpoint of persistent walnut and hazelnut piquancy, juicy pineapple, and suggestions of malt, caramel, and vanilla. This imposingly rich Puligny should drink well for at least 4-5 more years. In keeping with what he says are his usual intuitions, Philippe Prost picked early – bringing in Chardonnay ahead of Pinot Noir for the first time at Bouchard since 1989 – so as to retain freshness as well as what he termed “the sense of minerality in a vintage of very ripe fruit. But in 1989,” he hastens to add, “yields were perhaps overly generous, whereas in 2006 they are quite reasonable.” The results are consistently impressive. New barrels are generally “seasoned” here through use in wines of lesser appellation (other portions of which are frequently raised in tank), as Prost prefers to employ second year barrels for most of his crus. Injections of inert gas at bottling are among the techniques being used to protect the young wines here from oxidation. Importer: Henriot, Inc, New York, NY