2006 Le Montrachet

So why did I not give this wine a perfect score? Only because it was not desperately expressive on the nose at this stage so it was impossible to tell quite how it will turn out. It might well attain perfection. This is one of those wines that stops me in my tracks complaining about white burgundy. Very very concentrated yet with wonderful backbone and very different from the two wines above (it was barrel fermented, unlike most Leflaive wines). Just two little barrels in fact. Extremely solid with a little whiff of fresh ginger. Clean and limpid – vigorous and yet really rather majestic. Big and brooding and yet still introvert. With its crystalline acidity it certainly lights up the palate even if it’s not very expressive aromatically. Very fine indeed. Not mentioned in C&B’s latest offer (JR)

Very ripe aromas of peach and apricot; this is slow to reveal itself. Thick and rich in texture but still youthfully tight and showing cooler notes of menthol, mint and dried flowers. This is very ripe and impressively dense, but does it have enough energy and verve to make a great Montrachet?

As this is almost never racked out of barrel before bottling, in contrast to the relative expressiveness of the prior wines, the nose displayed mild reduction and oak notes that precede extremely primary, indeed backward big-bodied flavors that ooze with dry extract and are rich, full and powerful with palate staining intensity and a deep, opulent and hugely long finish. A wow wine. Allen Meadows, Burghound , jul. 2008