2007 Meursault Charmes

Expressive aromas of lemon, lime, verbena, white truffle and spicy oak. Juicy and lively, with ripe acidity giving cut to the lemon and lime fruit flavors. Finishes with noteworthy energy and length. This will need a few years to show off its inherent minerality.

Meursault-Charmes lies at the southern end of the commune on the border of Puligny-Montrachet, on the slope below Perrières and adjacent to Les Genevrières. The largest of Meursault's premiers crus by a considerable margin, it covers 31.2 ha in the parcels of Les Charmes-Dessus (the upper parcel), with 14.2 ha, and Les Charmes-Dessous (the lower parcel), with 17 ha. The soils of Les Charmes, due to their lower position on the slope, are richer and heavier than the thin, stony soils of Les Perrières above it, and yields the most typical Meursault premier cru. Traditional vinification in oak casks, the age and origin of which are determined by the qualities of the vintage. Slightly chalky texture, pretty taut. Very fresh citrus and quite dense and long. Definitely in the leaner style for Meursault. (JH)

The Jadot 2007 Meursault Charmes – based on fruit contracts with the same growers for many years – is compact, spicy, zesty, chalky, and generally energetic and pungent. This impressively dense, bright, and gripping wine seems to be one of those rendered more aggressive – and doubtless to some extent still stunted – by its sulfuring. I would want to revisit it, but envision a useful life of at least 4-5 years.||Jadot is one of those addresses where I confess to having feared that the combination of this vintage’s marked impression of acidity and relative leanness with Jacques Lardiere’s love of precision and merely selective use of malo-lactic fermentation might result in a dearth of sensual appeal. And he is the first to admit that a relatively high proportion of malic acidity was present in 2007, along with a danger of vegetal notes. But Lardiere took most of his 2007s all the way through malo, and my fears were at worst marginally realized. An overarching caveat is that these wines received higher dosages of sulphur (25 versus 15 grams) at bottling than those of other recent vintages, and will – Lardiere opines – take longer to shake off a certain pungency or hardening, but it did not find that alarming. As usual, I could not take time to taste all of Jadot’s many bottlings, which are less numerous this year, in any case, than in 2006. Incidentally, the first vintages of Domaine Ferret Pouilly-Fuisse under Jadot’s ownership and Lardiere’s direction – on which I shall report at a later time – are tremendously successful, preserving and even elevating critical elements of the personality that has long wines from that estate so memorable. eRobertParker.com.December, 2009