2012 Meursault Cuvee Tete de Murgers Cuvee Speciale

Javillier told me he was one of the first growers to harvest in Meursault in 2013 (he began on September 24 or 25) as he prefers to make very pure wines and was alarmed to see rot developing. The grapes were high in acidity, and the post-malo lots still have a healthy 4.3 or 4.4 grams per liter, he added. Javillier recently purchased a pneumatic press and used it for about 50% of the 2011 harvest, using his old Vaselin press, which results in more lees, for the other half. But with the "more delicate" 2013 fruit, he went entirely with the gentler pneumatic press. Javillier showed me representative samples of his 2013s that had more or less finished their malolactic fermentations. Incidentally, he described 2012 as "a miracle considering the catastrophic year. We had very good quality owing to having clean fruit and very small quantities." He went on to compare 2013 and 2012 to 2008 and 2009. "We had a lot of malic acidity in '13 and '08 and more tartaric acidity in '09 and '12, which gives more fullness to the wines." (A Peter Vezan selection, imported by The Wine Company, www.thewinecompany.net; also imported by Martin-Scott Wines, www.martinscottwines.com)