Le Montrachet, 1993, Comtes Lafon

One sip, a cask sample tasted at the Domaine, July 1994. The cellar master had already spent some two hours of very interesting tasting and discussing with me, and maybe decided from our discussions that I was serious enough a taster to ask the management if I could be allowed a sip of the Montrachet, of which Lafon makes only a bit more than two casks. Whoever made that decision while I was waiting in the Lafon cask cellar: thank you very much.

It was my first ever experience with a Montrachet. And the Lafon Montrachet is known in the books to be one of the best introductions to this 'wine of wines'.

And that is exactly what it tasted like. We had already tasted an impressive line up of Meursault cask samples that ended with the stunning Perrieres, but a Montrachet is in an altogether different league.

Stoney mineralness, smokey scents, unbelieveably intense concentration of fruit. Thats how the nose appears at first impression. It makes you humbly wonder how they succeed in extracting these levels of intensity out of a mere grape. When tasting my first sip I was stunned at the wine's intensity. Staggering terroir, filling the mouth completely, balanced by firm acidity, mind boggling body and and aftertaste that makes one silent for a minute or so. The most impressive thing is that the combined result of all these superlatives make a wine that is really not creating the impression of so very much power. It is the ultimate finesse wine maybe. A wine like a 12 cylinder Ferrari only needing half its power to flash away into the distance, making you hear the roaring when it almost disappears in the horizon. The only thing that is bad about tasting a Montrachet is that you probably will never drink a better wine in your life again. Incredibly expensive, and I cannot afford a wine as expensive as this one. But it is worth every penny!

Tasted July 1994 at the Domaine.