2006 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru

Pierre-Yves Colin has supplemented his production with several more hectares of vines from the family domain in Saint-Aubin. He uses a single label for all of his bottlings but points out that there's now more estate than negociant wine. Colin describes the 2007s as very minerally, pungent wines with very good length. He had planned to start picking on August 25, then decided to wait until September 1, and then delayed again until September 7, as he was seeking the best possible combination of sugars and acids. With each delay, said Colin, he had to change his team of pickers. At the end of May, Colin showed me the wines that had finished their malos and sugar fermentations, plus the Chevalier and Batard. The 2006s remained in barrel until August of 2007, then were racked into tanks, where most of them remained until they were bottled in March and April of this year. Colin had poured my samples of 2006s into carafes several hours before I tasted them, but a few of them remained minty and reduced (Colin uses generous doses of SO2 at bottling). "I looked for finesse in 2006; it was almost too easy to get fat," Colin told me, adding that he does almost no batonnage. "I was worried about the fruit in 2006, but the wines are now a pleasant surprise." Incidentally, Colin is now using wax capsules for his export bottles, which he told me now comprise fully 90% of his production. (A Daniel Johnnes Selection; imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; Atherton Wine Imports, Atherton, CA)

Pierre-Yves Colin is as cognizant of the dangers of premature oxidation of white Burgundy as any winemaker I visit, and he appears to be taking every possible step to bottle stable, ageworthy wines. He harvested as early as he could in 2006, beginning on the day of the ban (even though many of his holdings are in Saint-Aubin and are usually later to ripen their fruit). As he regarded the 2006 fruit as fragile, he did virtually no cold-settling of the must, keeping more lees with the wines but then doing no batonnage. And he has moved to later bottling as a rule. "Early bottling of the 2006s would accentuate the fragility of these wines," he explained. He planned to rack the wines in August and then move them into cuve for six months of further aging. He is confident that the second winter will "increase the precision and freshness of these wines and reduce their fruitiness." Happily, Colin's small quantity of negociant wine has been supplemented as of 2006 by four hectares of family-owned vines in Saint-Aubin. Colin believes that vintage 2005 offer more homogeneous quality than 2006, but he feels that the top 2006s are superb and may ultimately prove to have more personality. (A Daniel Johnnes Selection; imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY; Atherton Wine Imports, Atherton, CA)