2009 Montrachet Grand Cru

Mounir Saouma describes 2010 as a mix of 2005 and 2009 but admits that he doesn't know how they will turn out. "They were supposed to be very full-bodied but they're not. The vintage is humiliating us so far. The key will be long alcoholic fermentations," he said, adding that some of his wines still had some unfermented sugar and most of the malos hadn't even started. So on my latest visit I focused on the 2009s, which were still in barrel. Most of them only finished their malos during the summer of 2010. "The key in 2009 was being able to pick early with sufficient ripeness. The fruit was low in acidity and for the first 14 to 16 months we were talking about a good year. But the mistake was to rack the wines too early." As my notes show, Saouma has some stunning 2009s in the making. He planned to bottle them later than his '09 reds.

Mounir Saouma describes 2010 as a mix of 2005 and 2009 but admits that he doesn't know how they will turn out. "They were supposed to be very full-bodied but they're not. The vintage is humiliating us so far. The key will be long alcoholic fermentations," he said, adding that some of his wines still had some unfermented sugar and most of the malos hadn't even started. So on my latest visit I focused on the 2009s, which were still in barrel. Most of them only finished their malos during the summer of 2010. "The key in 2009 was being able to pick early with sufficient ripeness. The fruit was low in acidity and for the first 14 to 16 months we were talking about a good year. But the mistake was to rack the wines too early." As my notes show, Saouma has some stunning 2009s in the making. He planned to bottle them later than his '09 reds.

Mounir Saouma was on a marketing trip to the Far East during my annual spring tour of the Cote de Beaune, so I tasted this time with his wife Rotem, a graduate of the agronomy school of Dijon who won a prize from the French National Academy of Agriculture for her study on wine and the economy in the Cote d'Or. I got a chance to look at 2009s that were at the end of their malolactic fermentations, as well as a number of finished 2008s. Rotem described 2009 as "a beautiful summer." The grapes, she said, did not have particularly thick skins, but there was a good juice-to-skin balance and a lot of flavor in the juice. Potential alcohol levels were a relatively high 13.5% to 14%. Best of all, she added, there wasn't the dehydration or cooked fruit character of 2003, a vintage that was born atypical but became less extreme with elevage. In contrast, "2009 was born grand and balanced," she said. "All the components were in harmony from day one. I would say that they are sensitive wines due to lowish acidity levels but not fragile wines. The challenge was in the long, warm season and the risk of getting quick malos." So Saouma added 10 ppm of SO2 at the end of October to forestall the malos. Vintage 2008 presented a different challenge. "We needed to integrate the acidity," said Rotem. "The wines actually got a year of aging on their lees after the malos in order to soften the acids. We wanted an acid structure in the wines but not too dominant. We didn't stir a lot but topped the barrels with lees in order to fatten the wines."