2013 Meursault Poruzot

The 2013 Meursault 1er Cru Poruzots has a mineral-driven bouquet that is very focused and tense, getting to the heart of this great vineyard. The palate is fresh and vibrant with tangy orange peel and marmalade notes and a lovely saline touch that begs you to take another sip on the finish. Excellent - this may well turn out to be one of the best wines from the domaine this year.||It was an opportune moment to visit Meursault-based François Mikulski. By sheer chance his wife Marie-Pierre was sitting next to me while dining at Cave de Madeleine in Beaune the previous evening. I noticed that she had left her mobile phone on the table and so I returned it the following morning (once I had finished my international telephone calls.) As Marie-Pierre began racking her brain wondering when she had made that two-hour peak time call to Uzbekistan, I located François down in his cellar and we began discussing the vintage… ||“Now I am beginning to have a real impression of the 2013 vintage because it was difficult to assess before fining,” Francois Mikulski told me. “I think it’s an easy vintage to drink young – there is nothing obstructing the wine – it’s fresh, perhaps commercial wine if you can say that. It is difficult vintage to judge.” Well that’s where I come in and as I opined to Francois, I gauge his 2013s to be better than his 2012s, thanks to their propensity to reflect their respective terroirs and possess a little more…how shall I put this…fire in their bellies. These are wines that against the odds want to show what they can do and I loved his Premier Crus this year, especially his Poruzots ’13. As you would anticipate, they were affected by the hail and lost around 30% of the crop, and I felt that their reds were compromised as a result, bereft of their usual tenacity. One missing cuvée is the Meursault Perrières. This was under contract and the owner felt that he could not afford to sell any to François because of depleted recent vintages. Still, I could tell that François is on the look out for a replacement source, so fingers crossed there. This to me was Francois back on form after his more inconsistent 2012s and they come recommended given their reasonable price tags.| eRobertParker.com.January, 2015