Ployez-Jacquemart Liesse d'Harbonville 1999

The 1999 Ployez-Jacquemart “Liesse d’Harbonville” is its customary blend of seventy percent chardonnay and thirty percent pinot noir, with all of the vins clairs barrel-fermented and aged for six months in the cellars in two and three year-old barrels. The wine does not undergo malolactic fermentation and is aged for more than twelve years on the lees prior to disgorgement. The 1999 bottling offers up a deep and very classy nose of pear, delicious apple, buttery overtones from the oak, brioche, crème patissière, complex minerality, a bit of hazelnut and a topnote of gentle smokiness. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and very racy (from its non-malo personality), with a great core of fruit, broad shoulders (from the ’99 vintage’s ripeness), very refined mousse and stunning complexity on the very long, poised and perfectly balanced finish. The ripeness of 1999 is mostly felt here in terms of the breadth of the attack and the rock solid nature of the wine in the mid-palate, but I also get the sense that this fine vintage of Liesse d’Harbonville will mature on a faster track than wines such as the 1995 or 1996, and will probably be at its apogee within the next three or four years. It is a stellar example of the ’99 vintage. Drink between 2016-2025