“Ode to La Paulée de Meursault”-Highlights

“Ode to La Paulée de Meursault”-Highlights

by Edouard Bourgeois

11/18/20

It is always difficult to pick your favorite wine when the lineup is as impressive as it was at our wine dinner at Daniel on Monday. On that day, the 88th Paulée de Meursault should have been celebrated in Burgundy but was obviously recently cancelled. We were thrilled to welcome some of you for a celebration of this legendary bacchanalia. Great bottlings from Domaine des Comtes Lafon and Domaine Michel Lafarge certainly did the job!

Not a single bottle was off in this pitch-perfect lineup. The first flight of village level Meursault from our friend Dominique Lafon was a mouth watering attack to the menu, delivering wines of sharp acidity, still in their youth but starting to develop their teenage personality.

Moving to red wines with wild Scottish pheasant, we chose to focus on the iconic and noble Pinot Noir expressions of Domaine Michel Lafarge in Volnay. The winery, a pioneer in bottling wines under their own name since the 1970’s, did not disappoint. The highlights? I would certainly mention the bright and incredibly juicy 2008 Clos des Chênes but also the 1999 vintage from the same vineyard. I really enjoyed the touch of rusticity from that concentrated vintage.

I skipped the second white wine flight only because that is the one I was most impressed with therefore I want to save it for last: a horizontal flight of three top premier cru climats of Meursault, all from the 2010 vintage. “Charmes”, “Genevrières” and “Perrières” were impeccable. This was the perfect terroir study and a true Burgundy experience. The “Charmes”, with its unmistakable roundness and well fitting “charming” character. The “Perrières”, screaming with minerality, offered power and lip smacking persistence. Lastly, the “Genevrières” really appeared as the sibling of the other two, marrying generosity and freshness.