1999 Meursault Poruzots 1er Cru

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)