Tasting Notes
Robert Parker 89-91
The 2013 Meursault Narvaux has a generous bouquet with scents of lemon curd and apricot drifting from the glass. The palate is well balanced with a pleasant fatness in the mouth, rounded in texture with a spicy, lemongrass-tinged finish. There is almost an Alsace-like personality to this Meursault, but I would like to see it develop more race by the time of bottling. As usual, I tasted Pierre-Yves Colin’s 2013s in his tasting room close to the church in Chassagne. He was very positive about the vintage, though it was one where he had to make some big decisions during the vinification… "I stopped part of the malolactic in each cuvee around 20 to 30% to keep the acidity by adding a bit of sulfur before the malo," he explained. "The wines were a little too big for me." Pierre-Yves was not the only winemaker to take such action. Frederic Barnier did likewise at Louis Jadot. "My perception of 2013 is not a good memory. It was hard work in the vineyard," he continued. "It was a wet spring so we had to spray more often. It was difficult to get clean fruit, but the weather then gave us that…not over-ripe fruit though. The harvest began in 1 October. Our level of maturity was not very high and so everything was picked between 11.5 and 12.4% potential. I did quite a long press for 3 to 4 hours with no foullage [crushing] when the fruit went into the press. The vintage is not very powerful, but you really have the expression of terroir more than the vintage, such as in 2012. The wines tend to be fresh and it is more my style of vintage compared to 2012. They remind me a little of ’07, even if I do not know if they will age in the same way."
Anticipated maturity: 2016-2028
