2011 Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

I was deeply impressed with the wines I tasted from Thierry and Pascal Matrot this year. Thierry Matrot describes 2011 as a classic vintage, and while I don't share that view across the board, it certainly does seem to apply to these wines, as the terroirs are each beautifully marked. The harvest started on August 29. Matrot gave this wine some lees stirring to the end of September. The malos were fast

"We've never had 100% of the domain visited by hail, as we did in 2012," noted Thierry Matrot at the end of May, explaining that the August 30 storm was the most violent and destructive."Luckily, except for that storm we enjoyed good weather from August 6 until September 25, and we picked quickly beginning on the 19th.The 2012 vintage is about fruit, and it's to drink fairly quickly."Matrot told me that his top crus were perfectly ripe at harvest, coming in with potential alcohol around 12.2% and subsequently chaptalized to 13.2% to 13.4%.Like some of his colleagues in Meursault, Matrot considers 2011 to be a more classic vintage for white Burgundy."The north wind in August allowed the grapes to keep a good level of malic acidity and gave us classic wines," he told me."It's a vintage of comfort.Two thousand ten, in comparison, is for the true amateur of Burgundy.It's in the class of 1990 and 1985--a mix of the two in style."

"It was dry and hot until mid-July in 2011," said Thierry Matrot, but then it turned cold and wet for a month.Still, we had an unusually long 113 days between the flowering and harvest.We picked with potential alcohol between 12.5% and 13.2% and the acidity levels today are a very healthy 4.2 to 4.5 grams. The wines are not heavy; they have finesse, even if there's not a lot of fat or glyceral character.They taste very ripe but without having the characteristics of very ripe years."Matrot added that the growing season was much tougher for pinot noir."Much more selection was necessary and we did very soft vinifications."Other than a very good Bourgogne Blanc that had been bottled the week before my visit, the 2011s were still in barrel, unracked, and Matrot was retaining maximum CO2 so that he could use minimal SO2.This looks to be a very good set of 2011s.