When you happen upon a pristine bottle of Leflaive's 2005 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru, it's a terrific wine that clearly rans among the white Burgundies of the vintage, and this was just such a bottle. Offering up a stunning bouquet of confit lemons, honeycomb, vine blossom and freshly baked bread, it's full-bodied, ample and multidimensional, with incredible concentration, a firm chassis of structuring dry extract, lively acids and a long finish that still displays considerable youthful drive. This is a muscular, imposing Chevalier that nods to the 1989 vintage in style, though if anything it's better balanced. Today, while it's still a youthful wine, it's beginning to arrive at early maturity, and it's as pleasurable as it is impressive. Sadly, however, I have encountered oxidized bottles of the 2005, and this perfect example only made that more poignant. By the numbers, it possesses 13.7% alcohol with a pH of 3.22.

A lovely, beautifully defined nose of apple, minerals, orange-blossom and limestone. Lifted and very fragrant. The palate is very reserved, very intense with great balance and vivacity. This wine is giving very little away at this juncture, just says, “You have to wait!” But the minerally finish augurs for a great Chevalier. Drinking 2012-2020. Tasted January 2007.

Bright, pale yellow. Knockout nose combines citrus and stone fruits, flint, acacia flower and a leesy nuance. Extraordinarily dense and tactile on the palate, with uncanny clarity and energy to the flavors of white peach, lemon, wet stone and flint. A great stony expression, with great thrust and persistence and an almost weightless impression. The palate-saturating finishing flavor of dusty stone is almost painful. I love this style. This was bottled just ten days ago and will almost certainly shut down in the bottle for a long time.