2016 Domaine Vincent Girardin Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru

(Girardin had only a single two-year-old barrel from La Cabotte, which is situated just above Montrachet): Bright, light yellow. Complex, soil-driven nose combines yellow stone fruits and citrus fruits, clove, toast and iodiney minerality. Far more silky and suave than the Bienvenues-Bâtard, but still with an iodiney reserve to its concentrated fruit and spice flavors. Not yet especially classy for Chevalier-Montrachet, but this dense, thick, very young wine really needs several years of cellaring. Finishes energetic and very long.

(still a bit of malic acidity remaining): Bright medium yellow. Nicely pure scents of musky yellow fruits and gingery spices. Dense, savory grand cru with a lovely penetrating sweetness countered by brisk minerality. A rather powerful, even thick style but this wine has absorbed its oak more gracefully than the Corton-Charlemagne cuvées even if the wood element returns on the finish. There's a note of candied apple throughout but that may disappear when the wine is racked. (The rather phenolic Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet was still finishing its malo and had not yet been sulfited, while the similarly unfinished Bâtard was passing through a tired phase and was showing its 20% new oak component on a dry-edged finish.)