Neil Beckett | Losses at this flagship domaine were particularly severe, some 80% of the crop being taken by the devastating April frost. The grapes left on these old vines (an average age of 50 years), harvested in two tries, gave only 12hl/ha, the lowest yield in living memory. But they were perfectly healthy, and have produced the most magnificent wine from the estate that I can remember. Pale lemon-gold. Still very closed on the nose in terms of the aromatic spectrum, but the intensity and purity are already evident, and with air an almost mentholé, sweet herbal finesse begins to emerge. Great density and intensity on the palate, but despite the concentration there is nothing heavy, massive, or muscle-bound here; Hervé's ideal mille-feuilles image—richly layered but miraculously light—is perfect. Still more humain and terrien, as he says, than the Preuses, but none the less impressive for that, with astonishing length on the finish. | 95