2002 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru

Henri Boillot bought virtually no new oak for the 2003 vintage, opting instead to use one-year-old barrels. Boillot acidified lightly but did not block any of the malolactic fermentations. Due to the low acidity of the year, he did not stir the lees. The wines were already very rich and did not need further fattening," he told me. Like his colleague Vincent Girardin, whose new winemaking facility is literally next door on the outskirts of Meursault, Boillot believes that vintage 2003 favored the vines of Puligny-Montrachet, while vintage 2002 was best for Meursault. Boillot began our tasting by showing me samples from Auxey-Duresses and Saint-Romain, both of which will be blended into what should be a very strong bourgogne blanc. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington D. C. )

As I worked my way to the top of Boillot's hierarchy of white wines, this thought crossed my mind: how can chardonnay get better than this? Boillot's young 2002s, though obviously not yet in bottle at the time of my late spring tasting, are one of the greatest sets of young white Burgundies I've tasted to date. They are hugely rich but classically dry, with residual sugars, according to Boillot, in the modest 1.1 to 1.3 grams-per-liter range. They are sweetly oaky, but have more than enough material to support their wood element (and Boillot typically uses 350-liter Francois Freres barrels, which provide for somewhat less contact between the wood and the surface of the wine than the standard 228-liter Burgundy casks). The confident Boillot, for his part, describes his 2002s as "fat wines that possess exceptional acidity." By the way, Boillot had me taste his wines in the Riedel sangiovese glass, which he prefers for young chardonnay. But their high quality would have been obvious served up in a jelly jar. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C.)