2013 Chateau Genot-Boulanger Meursault Les Boucheres 750 ml

Dipping Our Fingers Into Le Bernardin’s Cookie Jar

Despite the high prices, there are far more white Burgundy fanatics on WineAccess than we could have ever imagined. Each week, on average, we receive two or three impassioned emails from guys hooked on Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet, wanting to know why we can’t leverage the membership’s buying power in Burgundy.

It’s a reasonable question. Here’s the simple answer.

Since 2010, the most revered Chardonnay growers in the world have barely had a sound night’s sleep during the spring and summer months. You name, they’ve seen it: golf-ball sized hail, flash frosts, fierce thunderstorms. Depending upon the village and the hillside setting, yields have been down 20-80%.

Yet, even as supply has shrunk, demand has skyrocketed, fueled by uber-rich consumers in the “new” fine wine markets like China, Brazil, and Russia. In NYC, top-notch white Burgundy sales are piping hot, with sommeliers like Sohm at Le Bernardin, Vaidya at Daniel, and Nicaise at Eleven Madison Park popping corks on $300-$500 bottles with alacrity.

As to the tiniest Premier Crus of Meursault, where a half-dozen producers tend just a few rows, eking out 8-10 barrels in large-crop vintages — and just 4-6 in vintages like 2013 — stateside allocations rarely exceed 50 cases. And if the wine in question is one of Wine Spectator’s highest-rated white Burgundies of the year? Bets are largely off.

Largely, but not entirely.

The Château Génot-Boulanger is a family estate run by Aude and Guillaume Lavollée, fourth-generation vignerons, since 2008. The Lavollées’ organically farmed miniscule holding of the fabulous Premier Cru vineyard Boucheres has produced one of the most extraordinary white Burgundies of 2013 — at ANY price. Total production was just 6 barrels, of which 2, or 50 cases, made it stateside. After Sohm, Vaidya, and Nicaise were offered theirs, WineAccess was next in line.

Brilliant pale-yellow. Gorgeous and exotic nose of white peach, ginger, light toast, and orchard pit. Firm, suave, and seamless, with great intensity and saline complexity, with a dense high-tension core of apple and pear, framed by wet-stone minerality. Give this phenomenal new release from Génot-Boulanger four to five years in the cellar, then drink over the following 10-15 years.

Elsewhere (if you can find it!): $100. Today on WineAccess: $85. Shipping included on 3. That’s good. The bad: Just 10 cases are up for grabs — albeit 20 percent of the American allocation.