2001 Meursault Village

Fichet is high on the 2001 vintage, "but it's not for drinking now. Both 2000 and 1999 can be consumed with pleasure already, and even the 2002s will be for drinking before the 2001s." He went on to compare the 2002 and 2001 whites to Burgundy's 1990 and 1991 reds. The 1990 reds and 2002 whites are good early drinkers, while the 1991 reds and 2001 whites need time." The 2002s were at all stages of their development in late spring, and I focused on the handful of wines that had finished their secondary fermentations. Fichet had stopped stirring the lees, as he considered the wines rich enough already; he noted that he stirred the lees of the 2001s until August of last year because the wines began quite nerveux and bracing. Not surprisingly, Fichet's 2002s are wonderfully scented and precise. (Domaines et Saveurs/Jeanne-Marie de Champs; importers include USA Wine Imports, New York, NY; Glazer's Wholesale Distributors, Dallas, TX; Fine Vines, Melrose Park, IL; A. Bommarito Wines, St. Louis, MO; and The Wine House Limited, San Francisco, CA)

The facilities move that I noted in Issue 7 has now fully occurred save for a bit of construction on a tasting room to receive visitors that is being finished up in the small cellar across from the main one. Jean-Philippe Fichet described 2001 as "much better than I ever imagined it would be as what were difficult wines initially have now blossomed into fine, elegant, pure examples of their terroirs with superb balancing acidity. The maturities were good but not exceptional, meaning we harvested most of the crop at around 13%. There was some rot, certainly more than we had in 2000 or 1999 but there wasn't so much that between a thorough triage and 24 hours of debourbage to allow for the gross lees to settle that we couldn't deal with it. Still, even though I haven't filtered any of my whites since 1994, I may in 2001 if the wines do not fall clear by themselves." Interestingly, Fichet compared 2001 to 1986, which I find interesting as there really wasn't widespread botrytis in '01 whereas there was quite a bit of it in '86. Amazingly, the quality here continues to improve and I again emphasize to readers that these are some of the purest, finest, most elegant white wines being made in Burgundy today and they are worth a special effort to find and acquire. In short, Fichet's wines drink well above their classification and thus represent not only top quality wine but are also among the best values as well.