2009 Meursault Poruzots 1er Cru

The 2010s here were in the middle of their malolactic fermentations at the beginning of June--no surprise in this cold cellar. Antoine Jobard noted that the crop in 2010 was very small, and that the wines are better balanced than the 2009s owing to their healthier acidity. Although the family's vines were not hit by hail, considerable coulure, especially on the hillsides and in the old vines, reduced the yields. A number of the crus, said Antoine, were down 60% from 2009's production, and the estate made even less wine than in 2008. When I asked Antoine what changes he has made to this domain's very traditional practices since taking over responsibility for winemaking, he told me that he's picking four or five days earlier than his father Francois did. "My father likes 14% potential alcohol but I prefer 13%," he explained. Francois never did a decanting of the must, but Antoine now does two or three hours of debourbage to eliminate reduction and bitterness, which he feels are difficult qualities for young, uninitiated tasters to deal with. He breaks certain cuvees into two parts, decanting half for a few hours but keeping all the lees with the other portion. Even after a wine has been in barrel for a year, it still contains seven or eight liters of lees, and this "dirty juice" may well partly explain why this domain has had very few problems over the years with premature oxidation. Jobard also plans to raise the percentage of new oak here from 15% to about 25%. He would like to shorten the elevage a bit, as he doesn't want to lose fruit and freshness. In fact, the 2009s were in bottle by the time of my visit: they were racked in March and bottled in early May. (Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant)

This is a fabulous set of wines from Antoine Jobard. The wines are distinguished for their sheer elegance and classiness. The harvest began on September 9. The wines were bottled in April, with a light filtration on the last 10-15 liters of each barrel.

As long-time subscribers know, I don't generally bother providing tasting notes on the newest vintage from this domain because the malos generally finish very late here and the bottling doesn't take place until nearly two years after the harvest. But this year a number of the rather low-acid 2009 barrels were already through their secondary fermentations by the end of May, and Antoine Jobard, who was concerned about the risk of getting heavy wines, seemed quite willing to show them. "There was a lot of material in 2009, although 13.3% was our maximum alcohol," he told me, adding that 2009 was a bit like 2005 in style. He made it clear that, to him at least, the 2008s "have more interesting acidity at the end of the mouth." But the very late malos in '08 caused father Francois and son Antoine to skip their normal July racking. In fact, the wines spent at least 18 months on their lees before being racked, as the Jobards did not want to put them back into barrel after the racking. Once the wines were taken off their lees, the Jobards simply stabilized them in tank for a month and then bottled them. The Jobards do barely a two-hour debourbage, starting with "dirty" juice but not doing any batonnage. This formula has clearly been successful, because this domain's wines have been mostly immune to problems with premature oxidation through the years. One exception was 1999, said Antoine, the year the family switched to a bottling machine (previously they did a gentle manual bottling). The bottling that year was too rough and the wines lost gas during the process, he told me. "The 375-ml. bottles we did by hand are fresher today."