Robert Parker's Wine Advocate 22/12/2009

Bouchard’s 2007 Corton-Charlemagne – the last wine they picked – offers another of those occasions for reflecting on a bit of Burgundian craziness: a grand cru wine presented last in a stellar line-up, yet that costs on-half to one-third that of the other grand cru bottlings that preceded it. A striking and intensely pungent aroma of holly berry, fresh ginger, and lime zest leads to a vivacious, silken-textured, chalky, saline, crustacean palate. For all of this wine’s sheer intensity and palpable sense of underlying extract, it shares lift, buoyancy, and overall elegance with its Chevalier-Montrachet counterparts and preserves the energy and primary, juicy refreshment that goes with its vintage. The diversity and persistence of mineral elements here are memorable. It’s the hundredth anniversary of this Bouchard parcel (characterized by all-day luminosity), and a happy birthday indeed! Those lucky enough to acquire some of this should anticipate more than a decade of pleasure, but I would estimate that re-visiting the wine in 2-3 years would be rewarding both sensually and in terms of estimating its further evolution.

Philippe Prost’s late-August starting date for the 2007 white harvest reflects not simply the enormous acreage over which Bouchard holds sway. (In fact, they can muster correspondingly large forces and their gargantuan facility with its battery of presses can handle the harvest in ten days if need be.) It is also a function of assiduous yield control that promotes ripening, and of a professed interest in capturing freshness and vivacity. Furthermore, picking extended for 18 days, until mid-September, and most of the estate’s top sites were brought in near the end. And with the exception of a Pouilly-Fuisse rendered from contract fruit, none of the 2007 whites here were chaptalized. Most came in a bit over 13% alcohol and – as Prost asserts and his wines testify – with excellent phenolic maturity. Prost prefers to avoid sulfuring the fruit or must, letting it darken from oxidation during its period of skin contact and settling because, in his view, not only the color but the flavors bounce back as soon as the juice starts fermenting, and the resulting wine is both more expressive and more stable. “You know,” he says by way of general commentary on the evolution of Bouchard vinification, “a few years ago we were too concerned to be clean and clinical” with the result that “the wines were closed,” especially in their youth. No one could level that charge at the wines now, even if some are subtle and understated. The question now – just as at other Burgundy addresses – is how white wines from the last several vintages will age. Among many recent changes made at Bouchard in the name (dare I interject, “hope”?) of reducing instances of premature oxidation and bottle variation are blanketing the assembled wines in nitrogen, a sophisticated new bottling protocol, and the use of Diam (specially treated composite) corks for village level wines and dense corks from Sardinia for crus.

A cool, airy, complex and gorgeously elegant nose is more restrained than these Puligny-based grands crus while offering up notes of green apple, pain grillé, stone and very subtle spice notes that merge into rich, full and impressively powerful flavors that possess perhaps the best dry extract levels of any wine in the range as they really stain the palate on the intense, long and bone dry finish that seems to have no end. There isn't quite as much overall depth here as in the Montrachet but otherwise, this succeeds in going to toe to toe, which is not small feat given how good the prior wine is.