Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Professional Ratings
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Jasper Morris
Clear pale yellow. As always, the Bâtard comes over in much chunkier style after the cashmere texture of Bienvenues. This is hewn out of the rock rather than soft wool. The 2021 Leflaive Bâtard-Montrachet delivers a block of power which will take much longer to come round, while the finish. Barrel Sample: (95-97)
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Wine Spectator
Round and vibrant, this white leans into the citrusy spectrum of flavors, offering lemon, orange peel and yuzu notes accented by apple and stone. Linear and intense on the superlong finish, where the flavors expand and linger.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru if the most sensual wine in the range, bursting with aromas of confit citrus, pear and white flowers mingled with notions of praline and freshly baked bread. Full-bodied, satiny and layered, it's the most unctuous, enveloping and rich of Leflaive's whites this year, concluding with a long, expansive finish.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
A source of some of the finest, juicy, silky and elegantly floral Chardonnay in the Côte de Beaune, Puligny-Montrachet lies just to the north of Chassagne-Montrachet, a village with which it shares two of its Grands Crus vineyards: Le Montrachet itself and Bâtard-Montrachet. Its other two, which it owns in their entirety, are Chevalier-Montrachet and Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet. And still, some of the finest white Burgundy wines come from the prized Premiers Crus vineyards of Puligny-Montrachet. To name a few, Les Pucelles, Le Clavoillon, Les Perrières, Les Referts and Les Combettes, as well as the rest, lie northeast and up slope from the Grands Crus.
Farther to the southeast are village level whites and the hamlet of Blagny where Pinot Noir grows best and has achieved Premier Cru status.