2002 Montrachet Grand Cru

The Meursault hillside suffered from the summer sun in 2003, while the bottom of the hill was hard-hit by frost, noted assistant Stephane Thibodaux. The Lafon holding in Le Montrachet fared better, though, as there's deeper soil here, and the vines are planted north-south, which means that the grapes were less exposed to the mid-day sun. Crop levels were down sharply in 2003, noted Thibodaux, as the vines had to wrestle with "frost, hail, thirst and sun. "For example, there are just 14 barrels of Charmes, compared to 40 in 2002, and 6 of Perrieres, vs. 14 the previous year. Lafon is doing less and less batonnage as a rule these days, and did less still with his 2003s. Thibodaux told me that the domain used a fairly high percentage of new oak (normally between 33% and 50%) as a result of having purchased the barrels in advance with the expectation of a somewhat larger crop, but noted that it's the power of the wine that can support aging in new oak, not just its acidity. (Classic Wine Imports, Boston MA Jeroboam Wines, New York NY

Dominique Lafon, who told me last year that he prefers his 2000 whites to his 2001s for their delicacy and elegance, describes 2002 as "a vintage of power." The wines, he went on, have tasted sweet from the start, even though they finished their fermentations with 1.5 to 2.0 grams per liter of residual sugar. The sugar fermentations were very long, noted Lafon, but the malos then went quickly. The wines all got very reduced after the malolactic fermentations due to the high extract levels, so we stirred the lees on two different occasions," added Lafon, who normally does not do any further batonnage after the malos finish. As he presented his 2002s, Lafon compared them in style to his '92s and '89s, and ventured the opinion that they would close up in bottle. Crop levels were moderate in 2002. In the huge 1999 harvest, this estate produced about 300 barrels of wine, both red and white, while in 2000 the total was 270 and in 2001 only 230, due to a tiny crop of pinot noir. Vintage 2002 was between 2000 and 2001 in size. A few of Lafon's 2001s had been bottled in April; the rest were scheduled to be bottled by mid-July, without filtration.