2011 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru

Boillot describes his 2012 whites as "very concentrated, ample and powerful wines, but some are more classic than others."Potential alcohol levels were in the very high 13% range and pHs were low, according to Boillot, who noted that there wasn't much juice in the grapes.Boillot told me that Chassagne-Montrachet was much more affected by the May frost than was Puligny or Meursault."Here we had a lot of coulure and millerandage," he said, "along with hail at the beginning of August."The malos were finished in January but Boillot was still stirring the lees every ten days "to protect the wines against oxidation, and because they have good acidity."He noted that despite the tiny yields of 2012 and an element of overconcentration, the '12s convey their terroirs more clearly than the 2009s do.He added that the new oak (Boillot uses about 25% for all of his whites) did not have much impact on the 2012s because of their concentration.Fining will be necessary to give precision and purity to the 2012s, said Boillot.The 2011s will be better for neophytes, "to drink before the 2010s and 2008s," Boillot concludes, while the 2012s are for connoisseurs--and not for early consumption.

Always an early harvester, Boillot began picking his 2011 pinot noir on August 27 and his chardonnay on the 31st.He lightly chaptalized most of the chardonnays.Boillot was still stirring the lees about every ten days at the time of my late May visit, and the wines were cloudy from a recent stirring just four days earlier.The malos had been finished for about two months, and Boillot planned to bottle in August, as he normally does.Incidentally, Boillot told me that he had tasted a lot of 2010s in London in January at a big trade tasting and thought that too many wines were from fruit that was picked too late.