2006 Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

Jean-Francois Coche picked until about September 15 in '07, reporting that the acid levels in the grapes were falling at the end. "The wines will be accessible early," he told me. "There's nothing hard or tannic about them." The chardonnays were routinely chaptalized by 0.5 to 0.7 of a degree, said Coche. The '07 whites are richer than the '04s, Coche went on. "They're higher in dry extract and more glyceral, with less tartaric acidity," he explained. Incidentally, Coche did very little lees stirring in either '07 or '06-"only at the very beginning." Coche believes that the '06s will begin to give pleasure in a couple of years, whereas "you need to forget the '05s for at least ten years." He compared '06 to '86, and '05 to '85, but noted that too many '06s were made from fruit that was harvested too late. Coche also compared '05 to 1964, which he told me was his first vintage. "The two years featured very similar climates," he told me. "There was very little rain, but the precipitation came at exactly the right times."

As is often the case here, the malolactic fermentations were slow in 2006, and most of Coche's newest crop of wines were still in full malo at the end of May. My notes are limited to barrels that had finished. Coche describes 2006 as a good harvest in which he picked early and thus avoided bringing in grapes affected by rot. He began on the day of the ban and finished in six days. As at several other addresses in Meursault, 2005 looks to be spectacular here. Coche says these wines remind him of "a melange of 1995 and 1985," or "like '85 but more tannic," and really need ten years of aging. The 2005 Corton-Charlemagne is another young masterpiece.