Domaine Robert Ampeau et Fils Meursault 1er Cru 'La Pièce Sous le Bois' 1999 750ml

FRANCE : BURGUNDY : MEURSAULT

SUSTAINABLE : Chardonnay

MED-BODIED, HAZELNUT, BAKED APPLE, LEMON CURD, CRUSHED STONE, NEUTRAL OAK

Every other domaine in Meursault sells its wine a year or two after bottling. Ampeau does not. Bottles go into the family's very cold cellars and stay there until the Ampeaus decide they are ready, which is usually two decades or more. This 1999 was made by Robert Ampeau himself, who died in 2004 after a last morning driving his tractor through the vines. It is being released now because now is when it is ready.

La Pièce Sous le Bois is the highest of Meursault's premiers crus, a 1.6-hectare parcel at roughly 350 meters sitting right under the treeline on the Blagny boundary. Clay-limestone over stony subsoil, southeast exposure, morning sun without the afternoon heat. That elevation is why the wine drinks with Puligny-like tension rather than the broad, buttery weight of lower Meursault. Fermented in concrete, aged about ten months in used barrels, no new oak at any point.

1999 was an excellent white Burgundy vintage, called by Decanter potentially the best since 1996, and it is also one of the vintages collectors approach carefully because of premature oxidation. Two things separate this bottle from that risk: it never left the producer's cellar in twenty-six years, and Ampeau's traditional, low-oak, oxidative handling is the style that appears to have come through intact. Fully mature now, with several years in hand.

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