2012 Puligny Montrachet Champs Gains

Pear, hazelnut and stone on the nose. Dry and spicy, with firm acidity framing the citrus and orchard fruit flavors. Intensely flavored and very long but a bit edgy, even tannic, on the back. This fruit was riper than the Garenne, notes Saouma, and lower in acidity.

The 2012 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champs Gains has a crisp, orange zest and nectarine-scented bouquet with touches of limestone underneath. The palate is well balanced with crisp lime, orange peel and citrus notes, gradually building towards a confident finish. Excellent. ||Before heading back home after a week of blind tasting 2011s, my last day was spent chez Lucien Le Moine after Mounier advised that it was an appropriate time to taste his white. This is one grower whose advice I heed with respect to the timing of the visit. The extended time in barrel and minimal use of sulfur means that there is little point in tasting these wines in their primal state. “The white 2012s are the same combination as reds: low yields and accessibility, which was a trap. I think we are going to suffer when the 2012s are in the market,” he opined is his customary candid and forthright manner. “People will find them heavy and a bit over-ripe, like the 2009s were accused of. But this is because the whites were racked, sulfured and bottled too early. The key to the 2012s was the late malolactic. You know, our cellar was still doing alcoholic and malolactics last summer in 2013.” Lucien le Moine seems to be a divisive, micro-négoçiant as Mounir’s outgoing personality and outspoken views rub some fellow vignerons up the wrong way. But it is what is in the glass that counts and I was deeply impressed by the potential of these barrel samples. eRobertParker.com.October, 2014