2005 Meursault Charmes 1er Cru

As at a number of other Meursault addresses, 2005 at Latour-Giraud brought a superbly concentrated and impeccably balanced set of wines. Jean-Pierre Latour loves the "crunchy fruit" of 2005 and says this is his favorite vintage of recent years. "Two thousand six is pure but different," he says. It's like 2002 in its combination of purity and richness but doesn't have quite the fruit of 2005." Latour started harvesting on the Friday before the ban de vendange, and finished his chardonnay parcels on the evening of September 19, before many growers in Chassagne-Montrachet picked their first grapes. He did less frequent lees stirring with the '06s than usual, and had just about finished as of my end-of-May visit. (Chemin des Vins; importers include Classic Wine Imports, Boston, MA; Bayfield Importing, Brooklyn, NY; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Chicago, IL; Wine Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA)

Jean-Pierre Latour is convinced that his 2005s will be for drinking later than his 2004s.The '05s are very rich wines with alcohol levels in the mid-13s without chaptalization, and Latour told me that he is surprised by their healthy levels of acidity following the end of the malolactic fermentations:typically between 4.3 and 4.5 grams per liter, with pHs in the low 3.15 range.The malos had recently finished but the wines had not been sulfited at the time of my visit, and they were holding a lot of gas.(A Patrick Lesec selection; importers include Classic Wine Imports, Boston, MA; Bayfield Importing, Manhasset, NY; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Chicago, IL; Wine Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA)