2012 Meursault Charmes 1er Cru

The growth cycle was over by the end of September in 2013, said Jean-Pierre Latour, and there wasn't much to gain by waiting any longer to harvest.He picked between September 27 and October 3, describing himself as "among the first one-third to harvest in Meursault."He brought in fruit with 12.2% alcohol "at most," then chaptalized by about a half-degree.The post-malo wines have good acidity, in the 4.3 grams-per-liter range for the village wines.Yields were very low, as the old vines in particular suffered during the flowering.Interestingly, Latour compared his 2013s to his 2010s:"They're classic but without quite the same early eclat to their fruit.They're not the most joyous wines today.But we had cleaner grapes in 2013 than in 2012, and the '13s are not fragile wines."Happily, they were also a lot easier to taste than the '12s were a year ago, as the earlier set of wines had barely begun their malolactic fermentations--in fact, several of them did not finish until November of '13.Latour expressed the opinion that the 2012s did not have enough energy to go through their malos early.On the other hand, they retained good acidity (around 4.5 grams per liter) and have powerful, pure fruit."The small volume of wine permitted high quality," he summarized, "and the late malos served to preserve the fruit, but some people pressed too much to get a bit more wine."Both 2012 and 2013 appear to be very successful here, with the top 2013s particularly impressive in the context of their vintage.I'm not sure if Latour has yet been properly recognized as one of the most thoughtful and intelligent producers in the village.