The Colin 2007 Meursault Perrieres offers a haunting bouquet of buddleia; suggestions of exotic, bitter-sweet orchid perfume; grapefruit; white peach; smoky black tea; and crushed stone, leading to one of those truly vibratory interchanges of citrus, pit fruit, and diverse mineral manifestations of which this vintage is capable at its best. There is enormous incipient richness as well as a silken texture here, but it's easy to overlook that side of the wine’s potential, with so much brightly-lit action taking place. The shimmering intensity and energy as well as the transparency to nuances of salt, stone, and crustacean saline savor of this finish puts me in mind of Chevalier-Montrachet. Pierre-Yves Colin – who openly pledges allegiance to Riesling virtues – does more than just talk the talk of achieving ripe fruit at low levels of potential alcohol. Finished alcohols in his collection – after half a percent or so of chaptalization – range from a (for modern times almost astonishing) 11.75% up to 12.75%. “I really can’t say,” he confesses, “why so many growers were getting fruit of 12.5% or more potential alcohol already at the end of August,” ten days before Colin even began picking, but he can say he doubts their fruit tasted ripe then! Half of the acreage he accesses is in Saint-Aubin – naturally conducive to later ripening – and was not picked until past mid-September this year. Colin believes in minimal settling, by gravity, and retaining lots of lees, but not in actively working them; favors rapid pressing, and 350- (one-third new) over 225-liter barrels; and welcomes late and protracted malo-lactic conversions – although this vintage's malos were completed by the following June. He bottled his Saint-Aubin crus at just over a year; his other premier crus this past March; and the grands crus (of which I was unfortunately unable to taste the Chevalier-Montrachet) in May, sealing them all with wax, in the belief that this will provide extra protection against harmful oxygen ingress.For myriad further details on this relatively new estate and its rapidly-growing family of wines – nearly half of which are from contract fruit – readers are urged to consult my report in issue 180, where – having up until then not seen a label – I inadvertently left-off the “-Morey” from the winery nameA Daniel Johnnes Selection imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, NY, tel. (516) 677 9300;Atherton Wine Imports, Menlo Park, CA, tel. (650) 328-6639 and Bertin Henri Selections, 10900 N.W. 21st Street, Unit 180, Doral, Florida 33172 tel: (305) 392-6995
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