2007 Chassagne-Montrachet Morgeots 1er Cru

I tasted these user-friendly wines this year with Marc Mollard's daughter Sabine, who is steadily taking over responsibility at this domain. She described the 2008 vintage as offering good acidity and ripeness, not to mention good definition of terroir. "In the end, we got ripeness during the last days before the harvest," she said. For fear of getting off-tastes in the wines from damaged skins (especially their vineyards in Puligny-Montrachet), the estate did a longer debourbage than normal, lasting two full days. Partly as a result of starting with cleaner juice, the malos took longer than usual, but were mostly over by the time of my visit. Sabine describes the 2008s as possessing more body than the 2007s but also a pleasant acidity. She finds the wines less vivid than the 2007s and believes they will be easier to drink early. But I found a few of the lesser young 2008s to be undernourished or tart. (Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, D.C.; Ideal Wines, Medford, MA) Also recommended: Chassagne-Montrachet (86).

Bernard Mollard is convinced that the 2007 harvest was saved by the last three weeks of the season. "I'm content with the freshness and finesse of 2007," he told me. "The wines are like the '04s but with a bit more material and lower acidity." Mollard started picking chardonnay on September 4, and brought in his premier crus beginning two days later. "But we could have waited a bit longer," he admitted. The Batard-Montrachet came in with potential alcohol of 13.4% but Mollard's other vineyards came in between 11.9% and 12.9% and he chaptalized his various cuvees between a half and a full degree.