Elegant, finely detailed fruit with peach, apple and citrus notes followed by wonderfully sappy, medium weight flavors that offer excellent, density, intensity and first rate length. This presently offers a better sense of precision and minerality than it usually does and the copious sève really coats the palate and the 2001 Clavoillon finishes with sneaky persistence. Kudos to the Leflaive team and to winemaker Pierre Morey because they have turned out a more than respectable effort despite the hail.

Bright, light yellow color. Subtly complex nose melds peach, flowers, butter and herbs. Juicy and moderately rich, with good fruit enlivened by sound acidity. In a drier style, but finishes with good grip. Still some malic acidity in this sample.

Appealing aromas of spiced pears can be discerned in the nose of the light-bodied 2001 Puligny-Montrachet Clavoillon. Lush on the attack, it offers a creamy-textured character of stones and minerals that leads to a rustic, almost “tannic” finish which may well dissipate in elevage. It should be consumed over the next 4 years. To Pierre Morey, Domaine Leflaive’s winemaker, “2001 was not an easy vintage, but it made our work that much more interesting. Our vines faced rot, hail, heat (that burned some grapes), cold, then the onset of botrytis, making us sort grape by grape.” He went on to add, “so we knew on August 3rd, the day after the hail storm, that it was a sorting vintage . . . our next surprise was the acid balance, in which we found we had normal tartaric numbers but high malic acid, making the wines difficult to taste. We opted for an extended elevage, to get the noses to express themselves and the bodies to fill out.” According to Morey, all of the domaine’s Puligny parcels were struck by hail, having lost 20% of their production of Folatieres, slightly less in other parcels. Yields, though lower than in both 1999 and 2000, came in between 40 and 45 hectoliters per hectare, after the work on the sorting tables. When I asked Mr. Morey, a deeply honest man, whether he liked the 2001s, he said, “it’s not my favorite vintage of the last 10 years, but an interesting one, I’m intrigued to see how they will age and when they will be at their best.” Importer: Wilson-Daniels, St. Helena, CA; tel. (707) 963-9661