2007 Meursault Charmes 1er Cru

Jean-Pierre Latour, always a candid source of information on the new vintage, maintained that the 2008s don't generally have the fruit or invigorating freshness of the 2007s but may be deeper wines. "They're concentrated, like the 2006s, but with less surmaturite," he told me. He was also convinced that growers whose vines carried heavy crop loads were not in a position to benefit from the three weeks of north wind that blew in September. "And because the concentration came from evaporation rather than true ripeness, there's always the chance that the sweet side of some wines could turn petrolly," he added. Latour had slow sugar fermentations (most of the wines ultimately finished with 2 to 2.5 grams per liter of sugar) and thus warmed his normally cold cellar to about 60 degrees during December and January, before bringing the temperature down to about 50 or 52. The malos, which can be quite late here, generally finished in March and the wines were sulfited at the end of that month. But they were still on their lees when I tasted them at the beginning of June, and Latour was still stirring the lees every three weeks as he felt the wines needed more complexity. (Chemin des Vins; importers include Bayfield Importing, Brooklyn, NY; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Melrose Park, IL; and Charles River Wine Company, Sturbridge, MA)

Jean-Pierre Latour warned me that his 2007s would be hard to taste, as few of the malolactic fermentations were finished and the wines were still holding a lot of gas. He had also been doing intensive batonnage (every 10 to 14 days) straight through to the end of May, and several of the wines were seriously cloudy. Latour brought in his chardonnays with potential alcohol in the 12% to 12.7% range, and typically chaptalized a half-degree to a degree. The wines, he said, finished very dry, often with as little as 0.7 grams per liter of residual sugar. Latour, who started picking chardonnay in 2006 five days before the ban de vendange, noted that the major risk in the earlier vintage was to end up with heavy wines. He describes his own wines as very concentrated, with decent acidity, but prefers 2005 for its higher acidity and lighter touch. He compared 2006 to 1995. Like several producers I visited in May, Latour made a point of showing his finished 2006s before his 2007s, on the theory that the richer and softer 2006s might come off as flat or ponderous following the more vibrant young 2007s. (Chemin des Vins; importers include Bayfield Importing, Brooklyn, NY; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Chicago, IL; Wine Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA)