1988 Meursault Les Perrieres

I was blessed to drink Coche's 1988 Meursault 1er Cru Perrières not once but twice this year, both bottles sourced from a cold cellar in Burgundy. Along with the much-lauded 1996, it gets my nod as the finest mature Coche Perrières for drinking today, unfurling in the glass with a captivating bouquet of sweet citrus oil, toasted nuts, sesame oil, iodine and wet stones. Medium to full-bodied, deep and racy, with a taut, chiseled core of fruit that has acquired the plenitude that only bottle age can confer, it's dense and mineral, with tangy acids and chalky structuring acid that makes its presence felt on the palate-staining finish.