1999 Meursault Le Limozin

Jean-Pierre Latour, who is making some of the most pure and natural wines in the village of Meursault, describes 1999 as "a great year; great ripeness with sound acidity." Vintage 2000 featured lower acidity and less aromatic purity, according to Latour, but the wines are very rich, like the '99s. The yeasts work well when the grapes have good acidity, says Latour, and because there less acidity in 2000, the wines have tended to finish their fermentations with more residual sugar than the '99s. In '99 and again in '00, Latour carried out a very slow, gentle pressing, which he says yielded richer fruit and very fine lees. As a result, he barely had to do a decanting (the debourbage lasted barely a few hours, he told me) before moving the wines into barrel. And the wines from these two vintages are almost entirely free-run juice; due to the full yields, says Latour, there was little reason to add back the press wine. The 2000s were still on their lees at the beginning of June; even those that had finished their malolactic fermentations had not yet been sulfited. (A Patrick Lesec selection; importers include Classic Wine Imports, Boston, MA; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; and Fine Vines, Melrose Park, IL)

Jean-Pierre Latour, looking positively svelte after having shed 20 kilos, has a promising crop of '99s in the works, from yields held to reasonable levels by a strict bourgeonnage Latour, whose wines can appear lean early on owing to his reluctance to chaptalize, nevertheless picks on the early side to retain acidity rather than waiting for higher sugars. Indeed, acids were average in '98 and a bit higher in '99. Latour told me he stirs the lees to enrich his wines and "to give them the ability to resist the wood, which results in less bitterness at the end of the levage " Latour '98s, bottled between November of '99 and March of '00, have turned out purer than most Meursaults from this difficult year. "I did a lot of work with the '98s, although it was hard to keep eliminating lesser wine due to the tiny size of the crop to begin with," Latour noted. He carried out a stronger bentonite fining than usual to "clean the middle of the palate." (A Patrick Lesec selection; importers include Classic Wine Imports, W. Roxbury, MA; Monsieur Touton, New York, NY; The Stacole Company, Boca Raton, FL; and Adventures in Wine, Daly City, CA)