2002 Meursault Le Limozin

By coincidence, I went directly from a visit with Jean-Philippe Fichet to see Jean-Pierre Latour across the street along the Route Nationale in Meursault. Both of these winemakers made wonderfully precise 2002s and both of them spoke at length about the challenges of vintage 2003, especially in the village of Meursault Latour harvested much later than Fichet, however, waiting until September 1 to begin p icking. spanstyle='mso-spacerun:yes'> Some rain on the Friday night and Saturday morning before we started harvesting on Monday helped to invigorate the vines," he told me. Before then our vines were just not ready to be harvested. "Latour's 2003s, not surprisingly, are rich in alcohol-as high as 14. 5% for the premier crus. He has kept his cellar very cool to slow the development of the wines in barrel and was still stirring the lees every two weeks to enrich the wines. The 2003s have concentration and purity," Latour maintains, "and therefore the wines merit a longer elevage Latour presented me with samples from once-used barrels with a squirt of new-barrel juice added-a strategy he thought would provide the most accurate approximations of the ultimate blends. (A Patrick Lesec selection; importers include Classic Wine Imports, Boston MA Monsieur Touton, New York NY The Stacole Co. , Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Chicago, IL; and Wine Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA)

It's harder to find exceptional 2001s than 2000s; the wines can be harmonious but they're smaller-scaled, and for earlier drinking than the 2000s," said Jean-Pierre Latour in early June. The 2001s required a lot of work to retain the fruit and the freshness," he added. We needed to keep the CO2 to maintain the freshness of the wines. They have good stuffing but less complexity and acidity than the 2000s, which are purer and more aromatically expressive. At some domains, a lot of the 2001s are developing too quickly." Latour's young 2002s were quite promising at the end of May, showing quintessential Meursault aromatics, excellent precision of flavor thanks to sound acids, and considerable backbone for aging. The malos had mostly ended shortly before my visit, and Latour had stopped stirring the lees about a month earlier, deeming the wines sufficiently rich. (A Patrick Lesec selection; importers include Classic Wine Imports, Boston, MA; Monsieur Touton, New York, NY; The Stacole Co., Boca Raton, FL; Fine Vines, Chicago, IL; Wine Warehouse, Los Angeles, CA)