1996 Corton Clos Rognet Grand Cru

Jean-Nicolas Meo describes his '97s as a quickly maturing group of wines that nonetheless avoided "the 1992 syndrome" of quick malolactic fermentations and pale, sediment filled wines. Although yields in '97 were almost as high as those in the copious '92 harvest, grape sugars were higher. Meo, who switched to earlier bottling with his '96s, expected to bottle the '97s in February and March, but had not yet racked these wines following the malos, which ended last spring. "With fragile vintages, if you rush them to bottle, you may lose part of their glycerol, their substance," he notes. Meo move to earlier bottling resulted from a trip he made to America in February of '97. In advance of his tour, he sent ahead samples of '95s that he had bottled in December of '96. When he tasted these special early bottlings two months later he was thrilled with the way they showed.

Jean-Nicolas Meo describes '96 as "between '90 and '93 in style." The grape sugars were in the high 12.5% range for the crus, like '90, but the '90s were riper and sweeter, Meo explains. And the color of '96 is darker than '95 and almost as dark as '93, a vintage he describes as having "maximum color." The '96 vintage is "at least very good; it will be approachable soon, but should have very good aging potential." Meo '95s, quite rich in extract thanks in part to extremely low yields, were closing down following bottling in early spring, but their high quality was apparent in November. I may have slightly underrated these wines a year ago from barrel.