2004 Domaine Leflaive, Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru 1x750ml

Vinous 91

Full medium yellow. A touch of musky yeasty reduction to the aromas of lemon, fresh pineapple and white pepper. Slightly tart lemony fruit is hardened by a faint herbaceousness and an edge of acidity, turning a bit green and peppery on the finish, perhaps partly due to incomplete stem ripeness. Still fresh but this will never be fleshy or opulent. The crop level was generous but "this was a complicated year for everybody," said Brice de la Morandiere, "due to oidium and to a long, late-arriving maturity at the end of the vegetative cycle." A very atypical grand cru for Leflaive, as there’s a touch of sourness on the aftertaste, not to mention a lack of flesh. (13.5% alcohol; 3.24 pH; the harvest started on September 25, with high levels of malic acidity in the grapes) [Stephen Tanzer, 17/09/2019]

Anticipated maturity: 2019-2031

Robert Parker 93

All of Domaine Leflaive’s 2004s were heavily reduced out of the gatesa the Pucelles being the worst offendera and the 2004 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru is still quite strongly marked by the toasty aromas of reduction, offering up notes of grilled bread, pear, dried white flowers, honeycomb and iodine. On the palate, it’s full-bodied, layered and textural, with a bright spine of acidity and a tight-knit, compact profile that’s still quite firm and unyielding, with good concentration and a somewhat mordant, delicately herbaceous finish. My reservation here is that while this is a fine wine in its introverted, reductive style, it’s at odds with the aesthetic that defined the great Leflaive wines of the 1970s and 1980sa wines that were all about elegance and satiny plenitude. [William Kelley, 27/06/2019]

Anticipated maturity: 2014-2030