2004 Meursault Perrières 1er Cru

As long-time readers know, Mounir Saouma's red wines have been outstanding in the past few vintages, but I have not expressed the same confidence level about his whites. This has largely been due to the fact that the wines have been so difficult to taste in late spring, for a number of reasons: his previous cellar was normally on the warm side by late May, the alcoholic fermentations and malos tend to be late, the wines are left on the lees with a lot of gas, and they generally evolve at vastly different paces. But my tasting this year of several finished 2003s, and the 2004s from barrel, made it abundantly clear that Saouma has a fine touch for white wine as well. Even so, some of the 2004s were rather reduced, as Saouma has done very little lees stirring with this vintage. He noted that these wines are very fresh but not at all aggressive. It was necessary for the growers to do oidium treatments and also to continue to reduce the crop load in September, he told me. "It was also essential to pick late. In 2002, we needed half a gram more acidity in order to have the same impression of freshness." Saouma injected his 2003 whites with CO2 as a way to stir the lees without losing gas, and he admitted using this technique with some cuvees as late as November of 2004. (Vintus, New York, NY; Chicago Wine Merchants Selections, Chicago, IL; Atherton Wine Imports, Atherton, CA)