Montrachet, Bouchard Père et Fils 2015

Tasted blind, Bouchard's 2015 Montrachet Grand Cru put in a fabulous showing, making my tasting note from earlier this year seem decidedly conservative. Wafting from the glass with a complex bouquet of Meyer lemon, mandarin, orange blossom, dried white flowers and toasted hazelnut, the wine is full-bodied, ample and textural, with an incredibly elegant, pure and precise profile. Above all, it's beautifully balanced, with the ineffable sense of completeness that distinguishes Montrachet at its best. 2020 - 2035

**Note: from a .89 ha parcel of Puligny vines**
There is a hint of exoticism to the citrus, pear and white peach suffused nose that is presently trimmed in a noticeable, if very slight, touch of sulfur. The rich and extremely concentrated big-bodied flavors possess an impressive amount of dry extract as well as excellent length. Not surprisingly this is definitely going to need time as it's on the monolithic side today and there isn't quite the same sense of energy compared to the La Cabotte. Those items duly noted, my rating offers the benefit of the doubt that this will harmonize in time because at the time of my tasting it had been in bottle for barely 45 days.

The 2015 Montrachet Grand Cru opens in the glass with a pretty nose of buttered apples, popcorn, orange blossom, mandarin rind, peach pit and a very subtle framing of new oak (15% new). On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, sappy and concentrated, with serious structure and grip, underpinned by succulent acidity. This isn't as racy as the Chevalier-Montrachet La Cabotte, but it reveals seriously impressive depth and extract and has become more tensile and precise since bottling, both of which bode well for its evolution over the next 10-15 years. Bottled under DIAM 30.