The 2015 Saint Aubin 1er Cru les Murgers Dents de Chien offers clean and pure lime, green apple and white peach aromas on the nose, a hint of licorice emerging with aeration. The palate is well balanced with sappy citrus fruit on the entry and a composed, citrus peel and spice-infused finish that lingers nicely in the mouth.

The 2014 Saint Aubin 1er Cru les Murgers des Dents de Chien has a very engaging nose with scents of white flowers joining the citrus fruit and walnut notes, not that far from a Meursault in style. The palate is smooth and quite rounded on the entry, a brush of honey here both in terms of flavor and texture, that walnut note continuing and a fumé-like finish that lingers nicely in the mouth. This is a very fine Saint Aubin that will give a decade's worth of pleasure.

The 2013 Saint Aubin 1er Cru les Murgers des Dents de Chien had a slight reduction on the nose, but that blows away. Underneath are attractive tangerine and clear honey scents combining well with wet stone aromas. The palate is fresh and clean on the entry, a citric line of acidity here, vibrant and lively with a vivacious green apple, citrus lemon and flint-tinged finish that bodes well once this is bottled. This is very fine.

The 2012 Saint Aubin 1er Cru Les Murgers des Dents de Chien, located just behind Montrachet of course, is very taciturn on the nose at the moment, despite rigorous coaxing. There are light mineral notes, perhaps more tertiary than others I have tasted from this climat. The palate is smooth and lightly honeyed on the entry and it certainly demonstrates more weight than the village cru, with a pleasing mango and apricot driven, generous finish. Fine. One statement nonchalantly uttered by head winemaker Frederic Barnier not only summed up the 2012 vintage, but the plight of Burgundy in recent years. “We have lost around one and a half crops out of the last four.” Imagine losing your equivalent income? For a significant negociant such as Louis Jadot, one that under outgoing(ish) winemaker Jacques Lardiere and his successor, have constantly striven for quality, that dearth of fruit has a major impact. The dramatic decrease in crop means that more people are “fighting” for top quality contracted fruit. The rise in land prices has exacerbated the problem as few can afford to buy vineyards and therefore resort to building small negociant businesses and join the queue. Now, small operations that just require one flagship barrel of grand cru might just be able to afford to pay over the odds. However, a merchant such as Jadot simply cannot afford to do that when they need dozens of barrels to satisfy worldwide demand. So how do they do it? “Relationships,” answers Frederic, “It all comes down to relationships with our contracted growers.” For evidence of that, just flick down to my review of their Bienvenue-Batard-Montrachet that came a whisker away from never being made. So with all the sturm und drang, how are Louis Jadot faring? Suffice to say that Frederic seems to have slipped into Jacques Lardiere’s impossible-to-fill shoes by simply slipping into his own. There was a confidence about him when I conducted two morning sessions with him, though he never crosses the line into braggadocio. The first tasting focused on a complete horizontal of the white. “The (white) 2012s were very rich,” he remarked. “Some of the village crus were overwhelmed and they were too fat and heavy. So in order to maintain freshness we blocked the malo-lactic through sulfur addition.” Frederic goes into more detail of the vintage in the accompanying video, but the main point is that the skins were thick and the berries yielded very little juice. This meant that he had to exact a very prudent vinification in order to eke out the free-run juice without leeching hard, bitter, perhaps astringent elements. He appears to have done exactly that. While I would not say that it was an unmitigated success, after all when you annually produce 100 crus there are bound to be some that don’t quite make the grade, Louis Jadot’s 2012s continue a fine run of form that disprove the theory that large-scale merchants cannot produce wine equal if not better than bijou growers. And that comes from a lot of sweat and tears. Frederic rued that he had not seen his wife or children over the previous four weeks during the harvest! But these prenatal wines appear to have made that temporary estrangement worthwhile. These samples were all taken from barrel and prepared by Frederic Barnier on the same morning of my arrival, with as much effort to reflect the final blend as possible. Note that for the village crus, samples did not include deselected premier crus barrels that will obviously ameliorate those wines. Importer: Kobrand Corp., Purchase, NY; tel. (914) 253-7756 and through Hatch Mansfield in UK.

Also recommended, but no tasting note given. The impressive collection of Jadot 2006s were slow both in their alcoholic fermentation and their malo-lactic evolution, which director Jacques Lardiere considered all to the good when it came to imposing structure and building complexity in wines of such ripeness and relatively high alcohol. In any case, Jadot whites seldom complete their malo-lactic transformation, and if one seeks a vintage to demonstrate the virtues of that approach, surely 2006 is the poster child. Furthermore, anyone who thinks that there are no values left in white Burgundy today has clearly not given Jadot’s wide range the attention it deserves. (These wines were assembled from barrel for my tasting and/or tasted from a range of individual barrels. I have generally made note of those wines not owned by Jadot and its associates by at least indicating whether grapes or juice were purchased.) Importer: Kobrand, Inc., New York, NY; tel.(212) 490 9300