The 2016 Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Le Charmois (one of the more underrated vineyards I might suggest) has a strict and quite stony, cooking apple and chalk-scented bouquet that is well defined although I would have liked more vigor at this early stage. The palate is well balanced with satisfying weight and concentration on the entry, a dab of spice on the back palate and a really harmonious and quite long finish that will put a smile on you face. Very fine and very delicious, maybe better than the 2015 last year.

The 2015 Saint-Aubin 1er Cru Le Charmois, matured in 20% new oak, has a rather introspective and broody bouquet, quite stony and Puligny-like in style. The palate is well balanced with a palpable sense of joie-de-vivre on the entry. It is not a complex or profound Saint-Aubin, but it has a lilting quality, dancing across the tongue and delivering pretty citrus and spice notes towards the finish, which shows more persistence than the village crus. Not profound but it is a pleasurable wine.

The 2013 Saint Aubin 1er Cru Charmois has a terse, Puligny-like bouquet that is both reserved and flinty. The palate is vibrant on the entry with lovely white peach and apricot notes decorating the pretty finish, that flint leitmotif continuing right to the end. What a pretty wine! Drink this over the next 5 or 6 years.

The Morey 2007 Saint Aubin Le Charmois (from mostly young vines, above Chassagne Les Chaumees) evinces a rather Riesling combination of honeysuckle, apple blossom, tangerine, lime, brown-spiced pineapple and peach in the nose; is mouth-filling and soothing yet offering plenty of primary juiciness and refreshment to accompany its richly honeyed and spicy aspects; and finishes with chalk and bitter citrus zest and fruit pit that offer a foil to the wine’s rich fruit and sweet allusions, but also result in a faintly drying and rough note. Mollard speculates that the effusiveness of fruit that he has been getting off of this and a number of other parcels could be due in part to the choice of modern clones that are in the majority. If any effect of the hail in this site is evident, then only in what I imagine is a hint of botrytis that gives the wine its appealingly honeyed and spicy cast, but also its bitterness. I would be inclined to enjoy it over the next 2-3 years, not only because of its manifest generosity, but also lest less attractive aspects of botrytis prove to be latent. Bernard Mollard began picking September 3 and brought in his crop in short order, in the end chaptalizing no more than half a degree. His wines underwent malolactic conversion already by early Spring – typical at this domaine – and were bottled at one year. The estate’s acreage is supplemented by contracts on five parcels in which they officially act as negociant, but exercise considerable control. “I like the way 2007 respects the terroir,” comments Mollard. “You can well tell the difference from one site to another.” I don’t disagree in general, but a more obvious feature of his 2007 collection – and a very flattering one – is sheer forwardness of ripe fruit, which results in a very strong family resemblance. Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083