2007 Meursault Les Perrieres

The Prieur 2007 Meursault Perrieres had only just been racked into tank the week before I tasted it, and was due for bottling late this past summer. Hints of wood smoke and white pepper add further pungency to a nose of lemon oil, ripe peach, lanolin and oak spice (from 100% new barrels). Exuberantly juicy up front - while palpably dense - I hope that the wood will not dry out the finish. For now, this simply lacks some refinement and the anticipated mineral aspects that typify its great site, but I have no doubt the finished wine will merit serious attention over the next several years. The 2004, incidentally, currently exhibits a certain bifurcation of fruit and oak, but totally convincing richness, freshness, and length. ||Oenologist Nadine Gublin did not begin harvesting the Prieur Chardonnay until September 10, finishing a week later. The wines (with the exception of the Montrachet) all weighed-in between 13-13.5% alcohol and none were chaptalized. Malo-lactic fermentations were slow, the wines were inexpressive early, hence Gublin elected to bottle them 2-4 months later than usual (using a new bottling system). As a result, I have only tasted the best of them as assembled in tank. A comparison of the 2004s side-by-side was fascinating, and among other things bore out Gublin's assertion that -the big difference between 2004 and 2007 was the presence of over-ripeness and of enormous heterogeneity of ripeness- in the former. After the completion of renovations that were ongoing when I visited, the whites in a gravity-flow facility will be vinified entirely separately from the reds, and subject to sophisticated air purification and temperature controls of both tanks and cellar. New tractors and personnel will be on hand from 2010 to assist a transition to organic viticulture. In all these respects, the idealism and ambition exhibited at this estate are formidable. eRobertParker.com.December, 2009