1999 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

This wine was tasted informally at the Rusty Staub Charity Dinner, held in April 2015 at the Bouley Test Kitchen in New York City.

In Leflaive reorganized barrel cellar, the '99s were bottled without filtration for the first time, and by gravity rather than being pumped. For critics of this domain who often feel that the bottled wines don't quite deliver on the promise of the barrel samples, this may well be the necessary last piece of the puzzle: the '99s are a stunning set of white Burgundies built for mid-term aging. "The best thing about '99 was the extremely even ripeness of the fruit thanks to a quick and regular flowering," said winemaker Pierre Morey. "All the grapes were in a position to benefit from the September sun," he added. Morey describes the young 2000s as showing almost confectionery sweetness; they are also extremely tactile in the context of the vintage. The acid levels were a bit lower than those of '99 at the outset, but are now about the same, noted Morey. Crop levels were about 15% lower in 2000 than in '99. Morey describes the new vintage as "amiable"; he feared oxidative aromas at the start, but says that the wines have stabilized nicely in barrel. Leflaive is now retaining more of the lees for the levage and the early barrel samples in '99 and again in '00 show wild and sometimes gamey sulfide and leesy elements that call to mind the sexy winemaking style of Jean-Francois Coche. Morey is well-placed to compare the wines of Puligny-Montrachet, Chassagne-Montrachet and Meursault, since he has his own domain and negociant operation in Meursault. He told me that the malolactic fermentations were generally slower in Puligny than in Meursault in 2000 ("advantage to Puligny"), while in '99 the crop levels were less excessive in Meursault than in Puligny ("advantage to Meursault"). As of '99, the entire Leflaive domaine is farmed according to the precepts of biodynamie "Among other things, bio means deeper roots," notes Morey, "which means more minerality and thus more acidity," especially important for the structure of chardonnay in the ripe years.

Winemaker Pierre Morey describes the '99s as very ripe, in spite of the huge crop. "We got 30% more volume than we predicted just before the harvest, and it was necessary to reorganize our picking strategies and buy more barrels," Morey explained. "But the grapes ripened regularly and swelled with water very slowly; that why the quality of the vintage is high." Domaine Leflaive used a helicopter in the vineyards on three consecutive mornings during the harvest to dry the grapes. Still, Morey admits, there was a difference in quality between the grapes picked before and after the rain. The malos were mostly finished when I stopped by at the end of June; those barrels that had not finished their secondary fermentations tended to have better acidity than the others, "but they're so rich that you don't taste it," Morey claims. He was just beginning to rack the wines at the time of my visit.