2006 Domaine des Comtés Lafon Meursault Clos de la Barre

Jewelly exciting nose with real line and density. Very fine. Great stuff! Still slightly astringent but very promising. (JR)

The Lafon 2006 Meursault Clos de la Barre offers another example of very clear, bright fruit; a polished, satiny texture yet with underlying firmness and palpable mineral density; nut oil richness; and a long, expressive finish featuring luscious lime, grapefruit, and pineapple. Along with narcissus and citrus, there are hints of coconut, vanilla, and lanolin on the nose, although only 3-4 of the 50-some barrels were new. Some of the exotic character on exhibit here can be chalked up to “late” harvest, so quickly were the grapes evolving in the four prior days of picking. I suspect this will be best enjoyed over the next 4-6 years. The more mineral – iodine, salt, chalk – inflected 2005 is formidably dense and sappy. Like his neighbor Jean-Marc Roulot, Benoit Ente in Puligny, and a few others, Dominique Lafon obtained authorization to begin picking several days ahead of the official ban de vendange. He set his crew to work over the weekend, and was finished already on the 20th of September. The Perrieres, picked first, reached 13.8% alcohol, but all of the other wines weighed in at lower levels. Lafon insisted – and his wines testified – that the Chardonnay grapes were botrytis free, and he characterized the lees as excellent in quality and practiced “less settling than I did in the past.” That restraint – along with bright acids and pronounced minerality – makes for a richness that often expresses itself other than in creaminess. As these wines evolved, Lafon became increasingly enthusiastic about them, and I found them much more expressive on the eve of bottling than they had been in late 2007. Incidentally, the sickly vines in Lafon’s Desiree vineyard that have given so much bottled pleasure over the years gave their last in the beautifully refined, bittersweet, and for the vintage unusually delicate and creamy 2005. “It tastes as though the vines knew they were going to be pulled out,” was Lafon’s valediction. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet (various importers), fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70; A Daniel Johnnes Selection imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY, tel. (516) 677 9300; Classic Wine Imports, Norwood, MA, tel. (781) 352 1100; Beaune Imports, Berkeley, CA, tel. (510) 559 1040

Aromas of hazelnut, iodine and spice. Supple and juicy, with very good definition and finesse to its sweet peach flavor. Lovely fresh wine with bright fruit and noteworthy energy.