1996 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

Many of my greatest wine experiences have been in front of a bottle of aged white Burgundy. This vertical of Jadot's Corton-Charlemagne was a very pleasant and unexpected surprise. Best of all, the wines showed beautifully, even those from less fortunate years. It is a shame that buying white Burgundy today is so fraught with the perils of premature oxidation. These wines all come from a true Golden Age for white Burgundy. Readers should note that drinking windows are based on the bottles I tasted at Jadot. Unless absolutely impeccably stored, the same wines tasted outside the winery are virtually guaranteed to be more advanced.

This first rate producer bottled its '96 whites between March and early May of this year; the wines had been kept on their fine lees until being racked just two or three weeks prior to bottling. Considering that several had been in bottle barely a month at the time of my visit, they were shockingly expressive. Indeed, said winemaker Jacques Lardiere, the '96s have le brio de chardonnay their lively acids give vibrancy and personality to their flavors. In comparison, Lardiere adds, the Jadot '95s are sappy and concentrated but introverted wines that are very closed now but will be outstanding in five years. The best of the '96s here, as noted below, offer fabulously complex aromatics and authoritative soil tones; their richness is tempered by their sound acids and strong soil tones. A quick look at a dozen or so '97s showed a less emphatic set of wines than the '96s. Lardiere, who is often harder on his own wines than critics are, noted that the '97s are low in sugar and low in acidity "far from an ideal combination for white Burgundy."