2013 Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru Henri Boillot

"From vines located around Aloxe-Corton, the 2013 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru has a lifted bouquet with scents of clear honey, yellow plum and limestone, linear in a Puligny style. The palate is clean and fresh with touches of spice on the entry. There is good weight in the mouth, crisp and almost terse toward the finish, with a pleasant saline note on the aftertaste. This is a fine Corton-Charlemagne.

(from vines on the Aloxe side; harvested at the end): Bright yellow with a gold tinge. Alluring high- pitched aromas of citrus peel, lavender, sea salt and silex. Tactile, chewy and dry, with strong crushed-stone minerality currently dominating the mid-palate. Boillot carried out a particularly strict sorting here, but even so this wine is the most tannic and phenolic of these 2013s today. This seriously powerful Corton-Charlemagne has the structure of a red wine.

(from a crop level under 15 hectoliters per hectare, according to Boillot): Superripe aromas of orange blossom and smoky silex verge on exotic. Then fat, sweet and rich for young Corton-Charlemagne, even a bit honeyed, but without the precision and energy of the stunning 2014. This has plenty of mineral spine but is less taut and energetic than the 2014 as well as a bit less phenolic than it appeared to be out of barrel a year ago.