The 2007 Santenay Clos de Malte is among the minority of Jadot whites from this vintage a portion of which did not undergo malolactic transformation. Apply and spicy; chalky in a way one imagines reflecting the mother rock that lies so near the surface here; it proves invigorating and impressively persistent, but rather spare in texture and brisk in finish. Given the outstanding quality potential of this site – fully reflected in its 2006 rendition – the present wine is disappointing, and I do not envision it taking well to bottle aging. Jadot has holdings or contracts in numerous vineyards of Saint-Aubin, many of them premier cru-rated, but with the exception of an occasional tiny bottling of Dents-de-Chiens (a quantity to be supplemented beginning this year), the fruit from all of these is blended and declassified.
Jadot is one of those addresses where I confess to having feared that the combination of this vintage’s marked impression of acidity and relative leanness with Jacques Lardiere’s love of precision and merely selective use of malo-lactic fermentation might result in a dearth of sensual appeal. And he is the first to admit that a relatively high proportion of malic acidity was present in 2007, along with a danger of vegetal notes. But Lardiere took most of his 2007s all the way through malo, and my fears were at worst marginally realized. An overarching caveat is that these wines received higher dosages of sulphur (25 versus 15 grams) at bottling than those of other recent vintages, and will – Lardiere opines – take longer to shake off a certain pungency or hardening, but it did not find that alarming. As usual, I could not take time to taste all of Jadot’s many bottlings, which are less numerous this year, in any case, than in 2006. Incidentally, the first vintages of Domaine Ferret Pouilly-Fuisse under Jadot’s ownership and Lardiere’s direction – on which I shall report at a later time – are tremendously successful, preserving and even elevating critical elements of the personality that has long wines from that estate so memorable.
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