Meursault Charmes 2016

An all but invisible trace of wood toast still allows the elegant if slightly exotic nose of white peach, petrol, acacia blossom and ripe pear aromas to be appreciated. There is fine complexity to the vibrant, lightly stony and delicious medium-bodied flavors that possess good underlying tension; indeed this could reasonably be described as racy on the balanced, complex and firmly structured finish.

Score: 92

Allen Meadows, Burghound Maturity: 2026+ 10 January 2019

The 2016 Meursault 1er Cru Charmes is superb, unfurling in the glass with aromas of crisp peaches, apples, dried white flowers, honeycomb and oatmeal. On the palate, the wine is medium to full-bodied, satiny and pure, with a deep, concentrated and multidimensional core, vibrant acids and a long finish. There's plenty of tight-knit structure and dry extract here, so this should be a long-lived Charmes. The 2017 vintage is an excellent year for Domaine des Comtes Lafon, where Dominique Lafon and his team seem to have attained a new level of consistency since the 2009 vintage. After the better part of two decades' experimentation and refinement, Lafon has found a mature aesthetic. What's more, he has devoted considerable attention to the question of premature oxidation, and today monitors dissolved oxygen levels at racking and bottling closely. Since the 2013 vintage, all the domaine's wines have also been bottled under Diam technical corks, and free sulfur levels and bottling practices have been adjusted accordingly. The result is wines that now realize much more reliably the quality they show in barrel. Satiny and succulent, these are some of the most charming wines in Meursault, beautifully defined by their respective climats. And 2017 is a fine vintage in red at this address, featuring for the first time a Volnay Champans derived almost exclusively from the domaine's 1921 plantings in this serious premier cru.

Score: 95

William Kelley, Wine Advocate, RobertParker.com Maturity: 2022-2042 04 January 2017