1999 Meursault

I preferred Bernard Morey domain bottlings to his collection of negociant wines in '99; the latter wines, sampled in a very cold, air-conditioned cellar (one of Morey's numerous locations around the top of the town of Chassagne-Montrachet), came across as leaner and more dominated by their oak. Morey told me that he stirred the lees weekly until the end of the malolactic fermentations in '98 as well as in '99; he would rather protect his wines against oxidation in this manner than add sulfur before the malos have finished. The gregarious Morey, who is the mayor of Chassagne-Montrachet, also noted that there was a lot of drought stress in 1999. "Some '98 cuvees not affected by frost were considerably riper than their '99 counterparts."