Recently racked when I tasted it, Jobard’s 2007 Meursault Blagny La Piece Sous le Bois offered a long, lean, impressively penetrating, if aromatically restrained account of its self. Chalk, salt and citrus tinged with piquant toasted grain and fruit pit are the familiar building blocks here, along with high-toned herbal pungency; and the combination of this rocky, high-elevation site’s typical character with the vintage’s character make for a stimulating brightness that some tasters will find audacious and an underlying firmness and finishing emphasis on salt and stone that some will find austere. Compared with this wine, the corresponding Tillets is practically user-friendly! Jobard believes that – like others of his 2007s – it needs four years to reconcile itself with its acidity. I’d say it should be fascinating to follow for at least 6-8 years in total. Antoine Jobard’s avowed upholding of his father’s “classic style” – enhanced by late bottling but with exclusively passive lees contact – extends to his preference for 2007 over the obviously richer, lower-acid 2005 and 2006 vintages, and his analogy with 2004 “except finer, less vegetal, and straighter” is born out by parallel tasting. While these 2007s display the brightness of acids, strong mineral cast, and energy that are hallmarks of 2007, few white Burgundy collections of the vintage were as tight and restrained last summer as was Jobard’s. He began picking already on September 3 and finished in only a week, in large part to guard acidity, although his must weights were already ample, and the finished wines – certain of which were lightly chaptalized – typically in the upper 12s in percent alcohol.Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524; also imported by Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400

From 60 year-old vines, Jobard’s 2006 Meursault Blagny La Piece Sous le Bois offers a sense of lemony citricity that was missing from the earlier wines in this collection. Bracing and invigorating in its aromatic suggestions of salt spray, kirsch, and citrus oils, its honeyed, malted, nutty, rich palate is threaded with refreshing citrus and underlain by a palpable sense of chalky extract. Toasted almond and cherry stone add to a long finishing personality. This should be worth cellaring for at least 5-7 years. Remarkably, Antoine Jobard (who took over from his father in 2004) relates that he did not begin harvesting until the 23rd of September (two days later than in 2005), and while there is no negative botrytis tone in evidence, and he asserts that none of the wines exceeded 13.5% alcohol, this collection shows the effects of late harvest. Never bottled before 18 months (more often later, though not in the forward 2006 vintage) the Jobard wines were still in barrel when last I tasted them (hence the wider point spread). Every wine is given virtually identical elevage, including around 20% new wood; and none receive batonnage. “I’m guarding the classic style,” says Antoine Jobard, with reference to the wines that made his father’s long-standing reputation for refined, at times understated, and prodigiously age-worthy Meursault. The 2005s here took well over a year to ferment to dryness. Those I tasted from bottle easily eclipsed the corresponding 2006s. The Jobard 2004s are also very strong, and Antoine Jobard believes they will be for drinking after the 2005s (which in my estimation means well after the 2006s!)Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524; also imported by Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400