2004 Meursault Village

Fichet compared the 2004 vintage to past large crops that produced wines of high quality, like 1982 and 1979, but does not think the new wines are in the same class as what he described as "the great 2002s." Still, he added, "When we picked late in 2004, we were able to get unctuous, fat wines." Fichet sorted his fruit to eliminate the most swollen clusters. He was one of several winemakers who told me that a few of his wines were affected by graisse (literally, fat-a malady caused by a bacteria that can develop in an anaerobic environment during the malolactic fermentation), which can give wines in barrel an oily, ropy, filament-like appearance and texture. Winemakers are normally able to eliminate this problem by giving their wines a vigorous racking, with strong oxygenation, but it often takes a good deal of forbearance not to carry out this racking earlier than would be best for the longer-term health of the wines. Fichet is not a fan of the 2003s (he told me last year he wished he had harvested earlier), but the finished wines he showed me were less extreme than I feared last spring. While they don't have the perfume and precision typical of his wines, they are certainly user-friendly. (Domaines et Saveurs/ Jeanne-Marie de Champs; importers include USA Wine Imports, New York, NY; Glazer's Wholesale Distributing, Dallas, TX; Fine Vines, Melrose Park, IL; A. Bommarito Wines, St. Louis, MO; and The Wine House Limited, San Francisco, CA)