2009 Nuits Saint-Georges Aux St-Julien

I tasted in November with assistant enologist Coralie Allexant, then received an update from Jean-Nicolas Meo on the progress of the 2009s shortly before going to press with this issue. "Obviously 2009 was a very ripe year, with a very fine month of August," Meo told me. "I think the sugars shot up at the very end, just before the harvest. We probably could have picked a little earlier, but not much, perhaps two days." Following the fermentations, acidity levels are low and pHs on the high side, but the slow evolution of the wines in barrel has helped reinforce their structures, Meo added. He told me that the wines tasted especially pleasant when I visited in November but since then they have acquired "more seriousness, not to say austerity." Still, he considers them to be "very fat and pleasant wines with a good capacity to age," closer in character to 1999 than to 2005, which he considers to be almost almost opposite in style. (Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; also represented by Domaines Saveurs/Jeanne-Marie de Champs, imported by Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY and Winebow, Somerville, MA) Also recommended: 2009 Marsannay (85-87).

"A sexy vintage with a lighter structure than 2005" is Etienne de Montille's capsule description of 2009. He started picking pinot early on September 7, but said he still rushed to get the fruit off the vines before the grape sugars rose. In the end they were in the very reasonable 12.5% to 13% range, and the wines at 13% were not chaptalized. Almost no triage was necessary in 2009, he added. De Montille told me he's bottling the '09s on the early side, especially his wines from the Cote de Beaune that were vinified without stems (some of these were already in bottle in November), which finished their malos earlier: "The texture of some of the wines is fragile and we can't take the risk of tiring the wines during elevage." He planned to rack his last cuvees by December. De Montille vinifies with a high percentage of whole clusters, especially in his top cuvees. (Martin-Scott Wines, Ltd., Lake Success, NY; Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA; Veritas, Beverly Hills, CA) Also recommended: Cote de Nuits Saint-Julienne (86).