2012 Meursault Les Tillets

The 2012 Meursault les Tillets, which Jean-Marc told me was one of the first vineyards to be picked, has a refined apple blossom and granitic nose with some faint semblance to a dry Mosel Riesling. The palate is crisp and taut with great animation on the entry; citrus lemon, touches of dried peach, plenty of freshly shaved ginger with a harmonious finish. Beautiful! ||One of the advantages of visiting Burgundy on what feels like a weekly basis is that you can be flexible with timings of tastings. That is precisely what happened at Domaine Guy Roulot, when back in November Jean-Marc politely inquired whether it would be possible to return later in the year once the sluggish malos had been completed. As it turned out, an opportune moment came upon my arrival in Burgundy for Jasper Morris’s week-long tasting of 2011s and indeed, Jasper joined us for the tasting of now bottled 2012s with the winemaker-cum-actor. He first told us about his intriguing new play that “stars” a bottle of wine (a Meursault Luchet if I recall correctly). One actor plays a customer and the other the winemaker so no prizes for guessing which is the one Jean-Marc is playing. We then commenced with the wines. |“Everything was bottled in late March,” Jean-Marc explained. “The quantity was so low it [the harvest] was done in 10 days. We were 60% down in terms of quantity: 25% to 30% for the premier crus, with Luchet and Tessons the most hit. And there is no Monthélie.”|We also touched on the subject of sulfur levels.|“I will try to decrease the level of SO2 in the future. In the past I have used around 25gm/L free sulfur. Now I postpone the sulfur addition to when the juice is dropping, allow the juice to oxidize just a little. Perhaps I can wait for that a little longer.”|On the subject of the 2012 vintage, he opined: “The wines are more concentrated than 2011 but maybe the terroir was more expressive in that year compared to 2012. The hail damage was early but we had to be careful with the press – in the beginning I was worried about a vegetal taste from the hail, but the wines are fine. I found that the 6 months in stainless steel helped the 2012s: they found a sense of purity.”|As one would expect – a set of exemplary wines from Jean-Marc: detailed, tense, terroir-driven and intellectual right down to the Bourgogne Blanc. Prices have risen steeply in recent years, but that is inescapable when you become the hottest ticket in Meursault after Coche-Dury. Sometimes I do find the SO2 a little too conspicuous in the bottles’ youth, although there were not too many problems here.| eRobertParker.com.October, 2014