2006 Meursault Les Genevrières 1er Cru

Henri Boillot told me he brought in his pinot noir early but waited until September 8 to attack the chardonnay, ultimately picking with at least 12.5% potential alcohol and chaptalizing a little (but adding no acidity). He described the new wines as "a bit less green than the '04s, and rounder too." Boillot did as much lees stirring in '07 as he did the previous year, but he emphasized that he prefers picking ripe fruit to carrying out a lot of batonnage. In 2006, on the other hand, he picked quite early, beginning before the day of the ban. Boillot uses mostly 350-liter barrels-around 50% new oak for the premier crus and all new barrels for the grand crus.

Henri Boillot describes his 2006s as "wines of great power, with a firm spinal column of acidity." Not surprisingly, Boillot was among the first to harvest on the Cote de Beaune: he told me he picked his Clos de la Mouchere on September 13! He carried out a "soft" elevage, with no stirring of the lees. My coverage of Boillot's domain cuvees is preliminary in nature, as none of these wines had completed their malolactic fermentations. In the negociant cellar, the wines were at all different stages of their malos, and some cuvees were not available for tasting. Boillot, who told me last year that 2005 was potentially great for chardonnay owing to the healthy grapes but tricky due to the sheer richness of material, pointed out that these wines changed completely after the fining. "There was so much pulp before that," he said. "The fining brought purity to the wines."