2002 Domaine Coche-Dury Meursault Les Perrières 1er Cru

Wafting from the glass with aromas of pear, sweet stone fruits, confit lemon, iodine and toasted nuts, Jean-François Coche's 2002 Meursault 1er Cru Perrières is full-bodied, rich and satiny, with a deep, layered mid-palate that's framed by lively acids and chalky extract, exhibiting terrific concentration and concluding with a long, smoke-inflected finish.

Subdued, refined aromas of peach, lemon peel, orange, stone and vanillin oak. Wonderfully suave on entry, then demonstrates pure grand cru class in the middle palate, with brilliantly delineated peach and citrus flavors lifted by crushed stone and minerals. A wine with great power and cut and yet almost magically light on its feet. Goes on and on on the back end; due to its palate-drenching extract, it's hard to get this wine off your palate (but that's no complaint!). The production was a healthy 45 hectoliters per hectare in 2002, notes Coche, who added that the grapes in Perrieres and in Narvaux were as perfect as he's ever seen them. In 2003, in contrast, his hillside parcels in Meursault yielded between 18 and 25 hectoliters per hectare. A personal favorite among the 2002s I tasted this spring.