The 2009 Meursault Charmes is quite typical of the year and this site. It shows tons of up-front juiciness in its yellow stone fruits, with more than enough volume to fill out its broad shouldered frame, although some of the intensity drops off on the mid-palate. Sweet, honeyed tones wrap around the finish. As attractive as this is, the Charmes lacks an element of freshness and is likely to be a wine that offers its finest drinking sooner rather than later. The Charmes is a blend of two parcels; one in Charmes du Bas, the other in Charmes du Haut that are vinified and aged separately prior to being blended for the final wine. Anticipated maturity: 2012+. Francois Bitouzet showed me a wide range of wines during my visit to the estate in June, 2011. Unfortunately most of the 2010s were still going through malo and were hard to read, but I did have chance to go through the 2008s, which I have included here. The whites are aged for 12 months in oak, 20-25% new. The village wines are then racked into steel for a further 4-6 months, while the premier crus are racked back into barrel. The extended aging in oak for some of the wines and use of batonnage are among the factors that give these whites a fair amount of textural richness and depth, even in cooler, more reticent vintages such as 2008. New oak is between 20-25%. The 2009s were bottled in February 2011. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990