1999 Meursault Poruzots 1er Cru

Francois Jobard picked quite late in 2000, with a bit of botrytis. The fruit was a hair lower in sugar than in '99, and Jobard describes the wines as suppler and easier than those of the previous year, with a distinctly floral aspect. Yields and acidity levels were roughly the same in both years, but Jobard told me he finds a bit more concentration in the '99s. Jobard does no debourbage but rarely stirs the lees; the '99s were racked for the first time after the 2000 harvest and were to have been racked a second time before the July bottling. As always, the new vintage was difficult to taste in late spring, but it was still possible to see the pliant side of the 2000 vintage chez Jobard, even if the wines possess sound structure.

Jobard admitted to producing a full 60 hectoliters per hectare in '99, as the grapes swelled at the last minute. He waited a full week after the official harvest start to begin picking, bringing in fruit with potential alcohol around 13.7% for the premier crus. Despite some rain, he described the '99s as fairly clean. Jobard does no debourbage and uses very little SO2 until the first racking, which rarely takes place until July; these practices, along with the tendency for the malolactics to be late in this cold cellar, make early tastings chez Jobard a bit of a crap shoot. I often pick up strange high tones, oxidation notes or suggestions of old barrel; often, these off notes disappear by the bottling. Jobard uses just 15%-20% new barrels for his wines, and I suspect he uses his barrels at least five or six times. Jobard describes his '98s as possessing average acidity, "like '97." The '99s, he adds, are even lower in acidity. Along with several of Dominique Lafon wines, Jobard's were the only '98s I sampled that were not in bottle by late spring.