The sublime Batard-Montrachet is the finest wine I have ever tasted from this estate. Massively ripe, rich, and toasty aromas are followed by an extraordinarily broad, expansive, structured, delineated, chewy, oily, and full-bodied character. This powerful and massive, yet finely-detailed offering is jam-packed with buttery minerals, toast, poached pears, and anise. Layers of focused and sweet fruit saturate the palate and seem to linger for 30 seconds or more on the admirable finish. This is a great wine! I suggest drinking it from 2002 to 2008. The rating, with the range of scores in parentheses, indicates the wine was tasted from cask, not bottle.
Jacques Montagnon, the Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet's young, dedicated, bright, and dynamic winemaker is leading this estate into the top echelon of Puligny's domaines. The Chateau's yields averaged 40 hectoliters/hectare while many of Montagnon's more esteemed, and more expensive, neighbors harvested 40% more. Not one to mince words, Montagnon described the 30% increase in permissible yields Puligny's vignerons obtained from the INAO to be a "total aberration and heresy."
Robert Kacher, this estate's US importer, is given the permission to select the barrels he would like, as are other nations' importers. In 1996 Kacher's "cuvees" have been subjected to a longer elevage than England's and the rest of Europe's. These notes reflect the wines that will be shipped to the US.
Montagnon's 1996's have the ripe, rich, and lively qualities I associate with this outstanding vintage, yet seem to have avoided its potential pitfalls, namely hollowness from high yields and teeth-clenching acidity.
Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel (202) 832-9083.
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