1996 Meursault Perrières 1er Cru

The biggest problem with 1997 was that much of the chardonnay was harvested when the ambient temperatures were high, said Martin Prieur, adding that this domain waited until a week after the ban de vendange to pick chardonnay grapes. "With reds it was more important to pick early, to retain freshness." Still, Prieur adds, the '97 whites are much fresher than the '94s: they have been much more resistant to oxidation in barrel and seem far less fragile. They were also a bit tricky to taste, as a few cuvees still had four or five grams of unfermented sugar. The Prieur '96s, some of which had been bottled less than two months prior to my visit, are altogether more structured, drier wines (they typically finished with barely one gram per liter residual sugar, vs. 1.5 to 2 for those '97s that have completed their primary fermentations). They will require a good seven or eight years of bottle aging.