2014 Bienvenues Bâtard Montrachet Grand Cru La Vougeraie

An expressive and highly complex nose of honeysuckle, green apple, pear and citrus notes introduces borderline painfully intense, pure and impressively powerful medium-bodied flavors that possess a caressing mid-palate mouth feel while delivering excellent persistence on the balanced finale. Lovely stuff and fashioned in an understated style.

Bright pale lemon, perhaps a hint of rubbery reduction, makes it a little difficult to taste. But there is plenty of wine underneath and the persistence is good. Quite a lot of oak. It may be that this wine really needs a lot more time to be understood.

The 2014 Bienvenue-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru, another new addition to the portfolio courtesy of Vincent Girardin, has that struck match note on the nose, perhaps less obvious though than the Bâtard-Montrachet and yet still discernible. The palate is crisp and fresh on the entry with lemon peel and orange rind, lifting nicely towards the midpalate but just tapering a little towards the pretty and quite understated finish.

Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting, Vougeraie's 2014 Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru is also showing some reduction on the nose although beneath that lurks a lot of fruit. The palate is well balanced with a spicy, quite saline entry. There is good presence and body here, and yet the finish does not convey the precision nor the mineralité that I found out of barrel. Let's hope for improvement in bottle.

Another parcel that was acquired by La Vougeraie from Vincent Girardin, this makes a good contrast with the more exotic Bâtard-Montrachet. Chalky, mineral and refreshing, with focused acidity, tangy grapefruit and citrus flavours and stylish, aromatic oak. 2017-30