1996 Bourgogne Blanc

The Bourgogne Blanc reveals appealing rich and smoky aromas as well as a light-to-medium-bodied, ripe, broad and defined core of freshly baked bread flavors. It should be at its peak between 2000 and 2002. The rating, with the range of scores in parentheses, indicates the wine was tasted from cask, not bottle. The soft spoken Francois Jobard feels the 1996 vintage is "like 1985 but riper and with better concentration," it has "great richness in sugar and acidity" in his opinion. Jobard never performs a debourbage, and ages his wines in 10-12% new oak for village wines and 15-20% for the premier crus. Only masochists will open Jobard's '96s upon release. These are bracing wines that have extraordinary underlying richness but they require patience. While most vignerons in the Cote d'Or now perform extensive batonnage, Jobard does none. He told me his experience with wines whose lees were stirred often have " a faster evolution in the bottle" because of their loss of CO2. Interestingly enough, virtually every vigneron in Meursault I spoke with said Jobard's wines age better than any one else's in the village. Maybe he's on to something? Carbon dioxide is a by product of fermentation. It is trapped in the barrel and serves as a preservative, protecting the wine from oxygen. the batonnage technique involves removing the barrels bung, inserting a rake-like steel rod and briskly stirring the lees that have deposited to the bottom. Jobard theorizes that each time this technique is employed CO2 escapes the wine and oxygen enters, thereby promoting pre-mature aging. There is no doubt that wines produced by vignerons who stir the lees often taste mature at an early stage while Jobard's take years to open. Some older bottles from "batonneurs" I have tasted tend to bear out his theory, but I am not yet comfortable making a sweeping statement about their ageworthiness. Importers: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel (510) 524-1524, and Martine's Wines, San Raphael, CA; tel (415) 485-1800.