2012 - Meursault Clos de la Barre, Domaine des Comtes Lafon

The 2012 Meursault Clos de la Barre comes from 2.12-hectares of vines planted between 1950 and 2004. It has a light, slightly more resinous bouquet with touches of honeysuckle. The palate is well balanced with a rounded opening: hints of dried apricot and a spicy vein towards the finish. This is an intriguing Meursault undecided how good it wants to be. I look forward to finding out after bottling. I am a simmering ball of irritation sitting in Dominique Lafon's office watching the second hand chipping away at precious time. Where is he? Our rendezvous was 8.30am. Now it's past nine and I have to be at Rossignol-Trapet, essentially the other side of the world, at 10.15am. I should bolt out of the door. But I don't. I don't because this is Domaine des Comtes Lafon. They have what I call a "special pass of forgiveness" that is totally at my discretion and totally unfair. But that's just the way it is. He's probably stopped for a cigarette. Dominique Lafon appears just after 9:03am, suitably remorseful and the raffish rascal has so much charm that I have to resist playfully punching him on the arm and saying: "It was my fault for demanding such an early start." And so we immediately troop down to the cellars to taste the 2012s, starting with the reds that were depleted by one-third due to the multifarious obstacles mentioned all over this report. Dominique divulged that like everywhere else, there were tardy malo-lactic fermentations and that he had not racked the wines. At time of writing he doubts that he will do so. As for the whites, they were depleted by between one-third and one-half, in particular affecting Les Perrieres and Montrachet. Whereas usually Dominique has around 350 barrels in his care, in 2012 that number is around 170. Dominique gave me the minutiae of the harvest, which commenced on 14 September with the young vines in Clos de la Baronne and finished on 23 September in Monthelie and Montrachet. (Compare this to 2011 that began on 24 August and

(no new oak used here): Bright medium yellow. Aromas of spicy yellow fruits and menthol are a bit muted by SO2. Much more expressive in the mouth, where nectarine and peach flavors are accented by wild herbs and spices. Really spreads out to saturate the palate with nectarine and spices on the long, dusty finish. Lafon noted that his 2012s were bottled with around 12.8% alcohol, with some of them having been lightly chaptalized.

Great charm and undertow though there's a slightly uncomfortably dry end. Chewy and dense but with real richness and extract underneath. (JR)