2015 Louis Latour Meursault Chateau de Blagny 1er Cru 750 ml

Bottled Sunshine from a Monopole in Burgundy

Whether or not you’re sporting a radiant tan now, or staring out your office window at a snowbank, or rainstorm, consider brightening up and warming your entire disposition with today’s 2015 Louis Latour Meursault Chateau de Blagny Premier Cru. If there’s anything better than a rich, white Burgundy from the aristocratic appellation of Meursault, it’s a Meursault Premier Cru. This is a richly textured bottle of first-rate Chardonnay, from a Monopole, that reveals layers of pure, ripe fruits laden with fabulously mouthwatering minerality—a postcard stamped with sunshine from a vacation you need only to uncork.

The best Chardonnay bottlings among them are heady in the glass, showing generous fruit flavors and ample mouthfeel with rich, ripe fruits that cascade from yellow apple and pear to tropical fruits, balanced by stark minerality and bright acidity for days. Louis-Fabrice Latour’s Chateau de Blagny Premier Cru is right in the pocket.

The Chateau de Blagny Premier Cru is a very special plot, which happens to be a Monopole, meaning the vines are entirely owned by Latour. The site’s Chardonnay vines, around 30 years of age, are rooted in stony Marl and Jurassic limestone soils (the appellation’s best) on a hillside overlooking the villages of Meursault and Puligny-Montrachet. The grapes from this site are gently pressed and fermented in Latour’s own French-made oak, of which just 35 percent is new with a medium toast—in short, purely to lend structure and support to the wine’s marvelously ripe fruit and mineral-rich profile, and not to overpower.  

The 2015s come from one of the warmest vintages on record, delivering more tropical opulence than other cooler years, and considered “outstanding” by Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.