2004 Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru
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Tasting notes
Full medium yellow. A touch of musky yeasty reduction to the aromas of lemon, fresh pineapple and white pepper. Slightly tart lemony fruit is hardened by a faint herbaceousness and an edge of acidity, turning a bit green and peppery on the finish, perhaps partly due to incomplete stem ripeness. Still fresh but this will never be fleshy or opulent. The crop level was generous but "this was a complicated year for everybody," said Brice de la Morandière, "due to oidium and to a long, late-arriving maturity at the end of the vegetative cycle." A very atypical grand cru for Leflaive, as there's a touch of sourness on the aftertaste, not to mention a lack of flesh. (13.5% alcohol; 3.24 pH; the harvest started on September 25, with high levels of malic acidity in the grapes)
Critic scores
Allen Meadows, Burghound
Neal Martin
More reviews and scores
All of Domaine Leflaive's 2004s were heavily reduced out of the gates—the Pucelles being the worst offender—and the 2004 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru is still quite strongly marked by the toasty aromas of reduction, offering up notes of grilled bread, pear, dried white flowers, honeycomb and iodine. On the palate, it's full-bodied, layered and textural, with a bright spine of acidity and a tight-knit, compact profile that's still quite firm and unyielding, with good concentration and a somewhat mordant, delicately herbaceous finish. My reservation here is that while this is a fine wine in its introverted, reductive style, it's at odds with the aesthetic that defined the great Leflaive wines of the 1970s and 1980s—wines that were all about elegance and satiny plenitude.
(bottled three weeks before my visit) Enticing nose offers lemon peel and wet and powdered stone. Wonderfully sweet but firm, with perfectly integrated acidity enlivening the flavors of crystallized lemon peel, stone and minerals. Wonderfully perfumed and aromatic in the mouth, and quite light on its feet despite its obvious density of material. Finishes very subtle and extremely long, with superb cut. This is actually lower in acidity in 2004 than the estate's Batard.
About the producer
Domaine Leflaive is arguably Burgundy’s most famous white wine producer, setting the benchmark for top-quality Chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune and the world. The property is the largest land-owner in Puligny-Montrachet, with extensive holdings in the village and five hectares of Grand Cru vineyards