1998 Meursault Les Chevalières

Remi Jobard, who has been in charge of winemaking at the family domain since 1994 (his father Charles retired after the '96 vintage), has introduced a host of changes since then. At the outset, he switched to cordon de royat a system of training the vines used by such veteran growers as Fran?s Jobard and Jean-Francois Coche, but now being instituted by a growing number of top domains to limit yields. Jobard has also adopted a gentler, longer pressing designed to enable him to rack the wine directly to barrel without a decanting. In '98, for the first time, Jobard gave a few of his white wines an extended 16-month levage Grape sugars ranged widely in '99, from 12.5% for the Poruzots to 14.3% for the Charmes. These are very rich, classic Meursaults, occasionally on the cusp of overripeness.

Remi Jobard says 1998 is very much like '97, but not quite as rich and with slightly lower acidity. Sugar levels in '98 were a bit lower-typically in the 13% to 13.5% range, "but not 14%, as in '97." Jobard prefers his '97s for their gras even though he admits that the sheer fat of these wines has a tendency to mask their terroir character. "1996 is a better vintage for those who want to see the differences between our various soils." Jobard presses his grapes slowly and gently; because he begins with clean bourbes he does not need to do more than 12 hours of decanting. In both '98 and '97, says Jobard, the lees were relatively pale and clean, so he put about 80% of the lees back into the wines. Incidentally, Jobard uses the traditional cordon du royat pruning approach, normally utilized in higher-vigor sites and unusual today for chardonnay in Burgundy. He says this pruning techniques gives him smaller yields and a degree more of potential alcohol without sacrificing acidity. For the first time, Jobard bottled his '97s without filtration, though he emphasized that he had been steadily reducing filtration since 1992.