2001 Montrachet Grand Cru

Dominique Lafon, who told me last year that he prefers his 2000 whites to his 2001s for their delicacy and elegance, describes 2002 as "a vintage of power." The wines, he went on, have tasted sweet from the start, even though they finished their fermentations with 1.5 to 2.0 grams per liter of residual sugar. The sugar fermentations were very long, noted Lafon, but the malos then went quickly. The wines all got very reduced after the malolactic fermentations due to the high extract levels, so we stirred the lees on two different occasions," added Lafon, who normally does not do any further batonnage after the malos finish. As he presented his 2002s, Lafon compared them in style to his '92s and '89s, and ventured the opinion that they would close up in bottle. Crop levels were moderate in 2002. In the huge 1999 harvest, this estate produced about 300 barrels of wine, both red and white, while in 2000 the total was 270 and in 2001 only 230, due to a tiny crop of pinot noir. Vintage 2002 was between 2000 and 2001 in size. A few of Lafon's 2001s had been bottled in April; the rest were scheduled to be bottled by mid-July, without filtration.

Dominique Lafon, always articulate when describing the nature of new vintages, describes his young 2001s as bigger and rounder than his 2000s, from riper grapes that were lower in acidity. But the 2000s have more elegant fruit," he adds, making it clear that, for the moment at least, he prefers the style of the earlier vintage. Lafon left his 2000s on their lees until December of 2001, and told me he now allows his wines to settle in tank for two or three weeks prior to the bottling in order to get more clarity in the finished wines.