2014 Domaine Leflaive, Batard-Montrachet Grand Cru

For reports and full tasting notes, go toTim Atkin MW's website.

Pale yellow with green highlights. Deeper and leesier on the nose than the Bienvenues, with ripe peach and hazelnut aromas complicated by sexy reduction. Large-scaled and powerful but not heavy, and totally different in style from the Bienvenues. Thick, plump and adamantly dry, with harmonious acidity giving shape to the wine's very ripe stone fruit and pineapple flavors. In a rather masculine style and not yet explosive, rather like a barrel sample. The phenolic, firmly structured finish leaves behind citrus and mineral notes.

The 2014 Batard Montrachet Grand Cru was a wine that did not quite set my world of fire when I tasted it from vat last year when I preferred the Bienvenue-Bâtard-Montrachet. Reacquainting myself with the wine in bottle, I was not convinced to alter that opinion. Leaving it to open for 5-10 minutes in the glass, the grand cru does open up with fresh pear and white peach scents, overtaken by granitic aromas over several minutes. The palate is clean and fresh on the entry with an attractive spicy, white pepper note in the background that comes forward towards the finish that offers commendable weight. What it lacks is just a bit of tension and energy, while I found just as much persistence but no more than the 2014 Les Pucelles. Perhaps it will improve down the line as Bâtard-Montrachet always does, but compared not only to its peers but to the 2015 as well, this just falls a little short. Tasted December 2016.

Broad and rich on the nose with some intriguingly mineral note – putty? – and great generosity even if not the most concentrated. Lots of pleasure. Lots of freshness as well as the richness. Long. (JR)