2014 Meursault Les Genevrières 1er Cru

A great reference vintage for white wines, said Henri Boillot of 2014. "There's a lot of mandarin zest in the wines, a lot of delicate things." Boillot noted that he had 2014s with pHs below 3.0 at the time of harvest, and some of his wines finished with as much as 5 grams per liter of acidity, which is fine with him as his main objective is "to tighten and shape" his white wines. Toward this end he makes his wines with high levels of protective CO2. He brings a large quantity of lees into his 350-liter barrels but does not do any batonnage.

Boillot considers 2014 to the best best vintage for white Burgundies since 2010. "Some vines were affected by hail but the temperatures were less warm after the hail than they were in 2012," he told me. "It's a very classy vintage with good energy and a lot of white flowers, especially in Puligny-Montrachet." Grape sugars were in the 12.5% range, he added. Boillot barely does any débourbage "in the healthy years," beginning with around 10 liters of lees per 350-liter barrel. He maintains a high level of CO2 to protect the wines, noting that "it makes no sense to stir the lees and lose CO2 because then you'd just have to add SO2. Besides, batonnage would have made heavy wines in 2014. The wines began with ripe acidity and plenty of fat to envelop it; it would have been a mistake to jeopardize the vintage's early balance."

For Boillot, 2013 is "not classic but it has a good structure. The harvest was pushed into October; it's like an old-style vintage."