1991 Chevalier Montrachet

Deep bright orange. Apricot liqueur and candied yellow fruits dominate the nose; a bit exotic for my taste. A rather powerful, even slightly aggressive wine with a strong fruit syrup quality and an exotic note of roasted oatmeal. For all its ripeness, there's no easy sweetness showing today; in fact, this intense wine conveys a slightly bitter impression of concentration. The harvest in 1991 was carried out in a very short period with a large team of pickers, noted Morandière. (14.1% alcohol; 3.26 pH; the Chevalier-Montrachet was picked on October 4, following heavy rainfall at the end of September)

This was a challenging white Burgundy vintage, but the 1991 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru has aged extremely well and emerged as one of the sleepers of this tasting. Offering up an expressive bouquet of white flowers, honeyed apples and orange rind, it's full-bodied, unctuously textured and powerful, with ripe acids, considerable concentration and chewy structuring extract, concluding with a long and expansive finish. While it's hardly given away, this represents good value in the context of mature vintages of Leflaive's Chevalier, and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up well-cellared bottles for drinking over the next decade. By the numbers, the wine finished with 14.1% alcohol and pH 3.26.

This was a challenging white Burgundy vintage, but the 1991 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru has aged extremely well and emerged as one of the sleepers of this tasting. Offering up an expressive bouquet of white flowers, honeyed apples and orange rind, it's full-bodied, unctuously textured and powerful, with ripe acids, considerable concentration and chewy structuring extract, concluding with a long and expansive finish. While it's hardly given away, this represents good value in the context of mature vintages of Leflaive's Chevalier, and I wouldn't hesitate to pick up well-cellared bottles for drinking over the next decade. By the numbers, the wine finished with 14.1% alcohol and pH 3.26.