2007 Puligny Montrachet Les Folatieres

The most elegant wine to this point with pure and delicate green fruit aromas that possess anise, lemon and mint hints, all of which can also be found on the minerally, racy and energetic middle weight flavors brimming with minerality on the palate staining finish of considerable length. There is very good if not stunning depth but the material is here such that this could actually be better than my rating in time.

Good pale color. Musky, leesy nose suggests mandarin orange and lemon. Fat, fruity and quite dry, with ripe framing acidity and good subtle persistence. Broad but lively wine, and evolving slowly. From the highest part of the cru, according to Boudot, but this seems distinctly riper-and less strictly mineral-driven-than the Garenne.

Sauzet’s 2007 Puligny-Montrachet Les Folatieres is doubtless marked by one of its two contributory parcels being the rocky “En Richard,” well to the south of the rest of Folatieres; high above the tiny Puligny Les Demoiselles and the northern tip of Chevalier-Montrachet, a location conducive to brightness and mineral characteristics. Hyacinth, apple blossom, and fresh lemon in the nose lead to a juicy, lively, yet silken-textured palate and a long, bittersweet finish featuring chalk, stone, apple pip, and played off against a shimmering reprise of citrus and of floral perfume in liquid form. This impeccably-balanced, nuanced Puligny should continue to reverberate on your palate for another 8-10 years. ||Gerard Boudot harvested the majority of his fruit during the first week in September, after what he considered to have been one last, critical week of ripening, and believing that it was more important to retain ripe acidity than go for a bit more potential alcohol. He reports having chaptalized selectively – largely at village level and to a very small degree – but the wines top out below 13% finished alcohol. Boudot did a rigorous selection not, he claimed, to remove rot but to cull any under-ripe berries and bunches. All of his 2007s were bottled by March, 2009 after their having spent 5-6 months assembled in tank, a period of passive watchfulness that is among diverse aspects of Boudot’s regimen to have been adjusted in recent years in response to high incidence of wines from the late ‘90s that displayed excessive oxidization after a half dozen years. The regimen of new oak here, incidentally, is 20-25% for the premier crus (with the exception of a bit more on Combettes), and never stands out as a factor detectable in itself. (The wines of this domaine legally belong to two entities, that of Domaine Etienne Sauzet and the company consisting of Boudot and his wife. In addition fruit is acquired for a few bottlings on long-term contract. I have not attempted to call attention to these differences in my notes, and in fact numerous crus represented here have multiple official owners.) eRobertParker.com.December, 2009