Description
93 – 95+ Points, William Kelley, The Wine Advocate, 31st January 2019
Pierre-Yves Colin’s greatest wine this year is the 2017 Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru, which hails from a parcel of 90-year-old vines planted on the Chassagne side that he farms but doesn’t own. Unfurling in the glass with complex aromas of Meyer lemon, nutmeg, honeycomb, dried white flowers, pastry cream and subtle new wood, it’s full-bodied, deep and multidimensional, with a layered, broad-shouldered mid-palate, excellent concentration and a long, vibrant finish.
Pierre-Yves Colin described the 2017 vintage as “pure and transparent,” with the wines nicely defined by their terroirs. They are, he adds, “more charming than I imagined-less ‘cold’ in style.” Old vines, he says, produced notably more interesting musts than younger plantings, an observation borne out along the Cote. Colin began picking early, on August 28, as usual privileging freshness; though I wonder if a successful experiment with picking his Corton-Charlemagne a little later than had been his habit suggests that the stylistic pendulum may be about to subtly swing at this address? In any case, he has produced a successful range, true to the strong house style, though showing comparatively little overt reduction when I visited after the harvest. As ever, no distinction is made on the labels between domaine and n?gociant wines, and Colin is increasingly taking responsibility for farming the parcels from which he purchases fruit.
