Tasting Notes
Vinous 91.5
(bottled just ten days prior to my visit) Rich aromas of smoke, butter and hazelnut. Rich and pure but youthfully austere and a bit disjointed today, even a bit rustic in the early going. But this is impressively large-scaled and chewy for the vintage. Needs a good five or six years to incorporate its rather strong acidity (actually, 4.6 grams per liter-at the high end for this cellar in this vintage).
JancisRobinson.com 18.5
Engaging reductive nose, smoky and haunting. Very fine boned. Blind, it could be difficult to identify as a Bâtard, though if you put Leflaive into the mix you might get it as perhaps it is not quite so finely chiselled as their Chevalier-Montrachet. Very firm and bone dry, savoury and appetising. You could drink it now but it still has great tautness and I would expect it to flower into something even more complex. Really great dry white wine.
Anticipated maturity: 2010-2016
Robert Parker 89
The 2004 Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru from Anne-Claude is creamy, generous and lightly honeyed, but in my opinion is in want of more terroir expression and delineation. It actually seems quite advanced for its age and status. The palate is powerful and quite viscous in the mouth with vanilla and honey notes, but again, it does not really express what Batard is all about. For sure, a pleasurable wine, but it is missing intellectual rigor. Drink now-2017.
Anticipated maturity: 2013-2017
