Camille Giroud’s 2006 Meursault La Barre – representing a late September picking and a mere four barrels in the cellar – is prominently peachy, honeyed and overtly ripe, yet suffused with juicy lemon and grapefruit. Opulent and silken in texture, yet not at all heavy, it finishes with admirable purity of ripe peach and citrus underlain by notes of toasted grain, fruit pit bitterness, and wet stone. Paradoxically, this came from assorted clones only ten year old, and despite its late harvest betrays no obvious botrytis and weighs in at just 13% alcohol. Here is truly fruit-forward yet by no means superficial Meursault, and I suspect capable of 5-7 years of interesting evolution.
Readers should consult issues 160 and 170 for details on this house owned by Ann Colgin and a group of Americans. They and their winemaker David Croix are as he puts it “trying to develop our program with whites, but it’s really hard to find good material.” The 2006 whites here prove that even with a relatively late harvest, one did not have to sacrifice clarity or minerality, nor be burdened with high alcohol. Clearly, this team is exercising unusual vigilance with their handful of growers. Croix took these wines from barrel early – after passive contact on the lees and careful preservation of CO2 – and then held them in tank for several months (the condition in which I tasted all but one them) before bottling unfined and unfiltered. The aim of extended time in tank was to further preserve freshness, and to insure that the wines and their levels of sulfur would remain stable.
Various Importers. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet; fax 011- 333-80-24-29-70
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