2016 Chevalier Montrachet
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Tasting notes
Bright lemon-yellow. Musky citrus fruits and crushed rock on the nose. Thick and dense but penetrating too, conveying a fine-grained texture to its flavors of apple, lemon and lime complicated by musky leesy nuances. The wine's touch of sweetness is nicely leavened by chalky minerality and floral lift. Perhaps deceptively easy to taste today owing to its unctuousness and open-knit fruit, but the very long, bracing finish suggests that this grand cru will evolve slowly--if not shut down in the bottle for a period of years.
Critic scores
Average Score
Neal Martin
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
The 2016 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru was touched by the frost so that there are just two barrels instead of four. It turns the amp up on the Bâtard-Montrachet with even more expressive, mint-tinged citrus fruit complemented by scents of quince and passion fruit. There is just a slight hint of VA but nothing much. The palate is very well balanced with a ripe, saline entry, good weight in the mouth and a slightly rounded, dense finish that just misses the precision of either the 2014 or 2015, or even the detail of the Bâtard-Montrachet. Let's see how this evolves in bottle because at the moment the Bâtard-Montrachet is a couple of furlongs ahead (at least in barrel).
(two barrels vs. a normal four; from the upper part of this grand cru): Higher-pitched aromas of white peach, pear and white flowers. Wonderfully fresh, floral wine with a silky, seamless texture and a complicating touch of salinity to its lemon and spice flavors. Conveys a glyceral quality and comes across as slightly sweeter than the rest of these '16s (Boudot noted that most of these wines have residual sugar of 1.2 or 1.3 grams per liter but that this one may be a bit higher). Finishes with lingering perfume of botanical herbs and spices.