Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Chardonnay
Professional Ratings
-
Jasper Morris
Mid lemon colour. As always, the bouquet rises above the others. I feel the need to keep on sniffing this! Brings a smile to the face. The 2021 Domaine Leflaive Pucelles offers such a complex mix of fruits, fresh apricot along with a mix of quality citrus, good density but above all a stylishness that expresses itself in a hugely long finish. Barrel Sample: (94-96)
-
Wine Spectator
Seamless in texture and balance, this white caresses the palate with honey, butter, peach, apple and lemon cake flavors. Harmonious and approachable now, yet this will continue to improve over the next five years. Shows fine length, with a toasty, spicy aftertaste. Drink now through 2035.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Unwinding in the glass with aromas of mandarin, buttered toast, clear honey, toasted nuts and youthful reduction, Leflaive's 2021 Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Pucelles is medium to full-bodied, layered and chalky, with a dense core of fruit and impressive structuring extract. Rating: 93+
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.