2010 Meursault Les Narvaux

Remi Jobard began by showing me his very strong 2010s, which he bottled in March. This vintage, he said, combines the best traits of the two previous vintages: "the concentration and rich attack of 2009 and the invigorating vividness of 2008." Jobard said he picked most of his parcels "on the early side for the village" in 2010, but potential alcohols were nonetheless in the 13.7% to 14% range. Production was down 40% from a normal year. Jobard told me that the 2011 malos were all finished by the December after the harvest, which is very early in this cold cellar, and that the wines didn't change much during the secondary fermentations as there wasn't a lot of malic acidity in the grapes. The 2011s have supple mid-palates but also very good acidity, said Jobard. He drew my samples from one-year-old barrels, which he felt would be most representative of each cuvee. Jobard continues to use numerous casks from the Austrian firm Stockinger, which he believes accentuates the aromas of his wines.

Remi Jobard describes the 2010s as having the richness of the 2009s and the elegance of the 2008s. I suppose that's as good a description as any. Jobard began bringing in his 2010s on September 21. Yields are down a whopping 40-50%, but in exchange Jobard has a superb set of wines that are rich yet not at all heavy. It is a vintage in which the personality of each of these sites comes through in spades. As I mentioned last year, Jobard is among the small but growing number of white Burgundy producers experimenting with foudres, which seems to work especially well with his wines. The Narvaux, Genevrières, Poruzots are partly aged in foudre, while the Charmes is done entirely in foudre.

Jobard told me that 2010 is the greatest vintage of recent years for him, and my early tasting of these wines suggests that he's right. Crop levels were very low, and the 2010s are sappy, concentrated, serious wines for aging. He told me that while the 2008s may be more minerally, they have less gras than the 2010s. Jobard presses very slowly, extracting little in the way of gross lees, and he believes this explains the purity of his wines. Incidentally, his classically dry 2009s have likewise turned out very well. They're all in the 13.2% to 13.7% range in alcohol but have enough balancing acidity to ensure freshness and definition. "It's a rich year in which my long elevage brought more elegance to the wines," said Jobard. "I've bottled after 18 months since 1999, and I've never regretted it." (Weygandt-Metzler Importing, Unionville, PA