Notes:

Burghound Tasting note: A supremely elegant nose of white flowers and crushed stone notes dissolves into precise and equally crystalline flavors that possess almost painful intensity on the driving, linear and vibrant finish. This is a complete wine with class to burn and it is rivaled only by the Chevalier for sheer style and grace. A marvelous effort. Burghound 93

Burghound Producer note: Henri Boillot continues to make stunning wines from his ngociant operations and he has arguably become the finest pure ngoce specializing in white burgundy today; yes there are other very fine ngociants but the huge majority of them are really domaines hidden inside a "maison" facade that buy in fruit or must to supplement their proprietary wines. And to have done it with the speed that Boillot has is nothing other than spectacular. Boillot calls 2004 a "classic year with excellent structure and acidity but the key to the vintage is that the wines have good mid-palate fat. For example, 2002 has the same acidity but finishes quite dry whereas 2004 has the requisite fat to buffer the racy acidity. The best 2004s are pure and very dry but they're not hard or aggressive. Yes, you had to spend a lot of time in the vineyards and one of my suppliers from whom I normally source the Bienvenues and Folatires had such severe problems with oidium that I refused to purchase the fruit. And you had to be careful in general as hail was a factor as was overproduction. However, when the wines are good they are spectacular and what most people don't yet realize, they are actually riper than the 2000s but the firm acidity hides that from view at the moment. The best wines in 2004 come from Puligny with Meursault in runner up position and I generally find the wines of Chassagne to be somewhat disappointing - they're not bad wines but they just don't sing. Overall, I love the vintage and believe it will age exceptionally well." As an aside, Boillot told me that he has been doing less and less btonnage and in 2004, save for the Bourgogne and the 3 villages wines, he did none at all. The wines were bottled in February.