2013 Montrachet Grand Cru

Though I have tasted this rarity twice from bottle, this was the first time that I have tasted it from barrel and therefore I have less context than Anne-Claude Leflaive's other crus. What I can say is that the 2013 Montrachet Grand Cru was quite astonishing. Even having just tasted the Chevalier-Montrachet, I have to admit that this was in a totally different league. It simply rockets from the glass with scents of citrus lemon, lemon curd, white peach and shaved almond all beautifully delineated. The palate is an intense "experience," that being the operative word. It envelops the senses, cradles them with citrus scents, almond, limestone and white peach scents, the texture surprisingly rounded but not viscous. With enormous persistence, this is quite a remarkable Montrachet to be.

(aging in a single new 228-liter barrel): Bright light-medium yellow. Strong nutty oak on the spicy nose. The fattest and sweetest of these 2013s, but without quite the inner-mouth tension of the Chevalier. But the long, broad, expanding finish conveys an impression of great solidity, with the wine's deeply pitched fruit-and-spice aftertaste enrobed by its wood. This wine will be racked into a one- or two-year-old barrel for the last six months of its elevage.