Happily, there was no hail in Montrachet and the 2014 from Domaine des Comtes Lafon is a breathtakingly beautiful young wine. The utterly pristine and filigreed bouquet delivers a complex panoply of pear, apple, a touch of passion fruit, chalky soil tones, a potpourri of very delicate floral scents and vanillin oak. There is also a nice touch of fresh almond on the nose that will soon turn to crème patissière with a bit of bottle age. On the palate the wine is utterly pure, refined and almost silky in texture, with its full-bodied format offering up stunning focus and balance, a rock solid core and a superb, vibrant and very complex finish. This is a classic 2014 white Burgundy, with the possibility to drink with utter completeness with only a few years’ worth of bottle age, but with the seamless balance to also age long and gracefully. A magical wine. (Drink between 2018-2045)

Reduction completely flattens the underlying fruit and all that can presently be discerned is wood toast. This is a much bigger and richer wine than the Perrières with its full-bodied and luxurious flavors that brim with seemingly a limitless supply of dry extract yet there is a fine sense of underlying tension and precision on the balanced and hugely persistent finish. As it usually is this stunningly good Montrachet is incredibly powerful yet focused with superb development potential that is going to require a seriously extended snooze in a cool cellar.

(still in tank): Distinctly wild aromas of pineapple, iodine, resiny oak and caraway seed lifted by a floral topnote. Then brooding and a bit lower-toned on the palate than the Perrières but with a texture of liquid velvet to its plush, soil-driven flavors of ripe stone fruits and smoky minerality. This youthfully musky, extremely backward wine does not currently display the sheer verve of Lafon's supernal Meursault Perrières but it boasts outstanding sweetness for the year and a wonderfully tactile, building, palate-dusting finish. This wine will need extended cellaring.