2023 Domaine Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru

Notes of orange oil, pear and peach mingle with hints of nutmeg, clear honey and buttered toast, introducing Leflaive's 2023 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru. Full-bodied, dense and blocky, it's broad-shouldered and multidimensional, with an unctuous attack, a deep mid-palate and a broad, expansive finish. The modern history of Domaine Leflaive began when Joseph Leflaive, a former naval engineer, began acquiring vineyards in 1905 amid low prices following the phylloxera epidemic. From 1920, under legendary régisseur François Virot, the domaine was replanted with adapted rootstocks, expanded its holdings and shifted toward domaine bottling. From 1953, Vincent Leflaive took the reins; and in 1990, his daughter, Anne-Claude, took charge, initiating biodynamic trails, with full conversion by the late 1990s. Brice de La Morandière directs the estate today, with Amandine Brillanceau as the new technical director since January 2025. This tasting, however, looked at the penultimate vintage vinified by outgoing winemaker Pierre Vincent, who had worked at Leflaive since 2016: the 2023s. From bottle, these have turned out very nicely, with several cuvées matching the quality of their 2022 counterparts. The style is more outgoing, with fleshy fruit in the foreground, and all the wines appear likely to offer broad drinking windows. As usual, élevage began with a year in barrel (from a variety of coopers, including Séguin Moreau and Chassin) followed by six months or so in tank on the(WK)

Note: from 3 different parcels, two on the Chassagne side and the third in the Puligny sector that is near the border dividing the two communes. This is the first wine in the range to display any appreciable reduction and here it's firm enough to overshadow the underlying fruit. The rich, generous and broad-shouldered flavors are rich to the point of opulence thanks to the equally abundant sappy dry extract that coats the palate on the powerful, compact, youthfully austere and built-to-age finale. This is terrific and very much intended for longer-term keeping, indeed, it is presently so compact that I would suggest not touching a bottle before 10 years have passed.*Burghound Don't Miss!*