Terroir Insight: Domaine Leflaive Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet

Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet is a special vineyard producing an intriguing wine that on occasion can give Batard-Montrachet a run for its money. Yet often it frustrates your expectations, and you would have preferred a bottle of Chevalier-Montrachet or a more predictable Batard.

So what is it with Bienvenues-Batard? Let’s find out.

The nature of Bienvenues-Batard-Montrachet

Bienvenues is a complex wine that rarely exceeds – or even meets – the expectations we have for it.

Tasting Bienvenues from cask gives you hope and high expectations: a Batard with a more refined and female touch, a Pucelles with more intensity and power, but still the delicate refinement that only Pucelles can deliver.

These are the expectations raised, yet in the end they are frequently frustrated by Bienvenues in the bottle, which often fails to impress.

The logic behind these expectations is clear however, as Bienvenues is wedged between Batard and Pucelles, leading to the hope it will bridge the gap between these two vineyards and deliver the best of each.

That said, the fact is that this is an unbridgeable gap. The feminine touch of a great Pucelles could not come from Batard; a powerful Pucelles is more likely to be soulmate to a Chevalier-Montrachet, with its vinous style and refined intensity.

In the end, Bievenues is best when approached without expectations and drunk with an open mind (as one always should, but rarely does). It will never be able to fill the gap among Pucelles, Batard and Chevalier – but it will give you something different.

Perhaps it’s a big and complex Enseigneres with a fine mid-slope balance – grand cru of course!

Maybe in the end one shouldn’t seek too hard to explain or understand Bienvenues. Nonethelss, I have always tried when it is in my glass, and always with its financial status in the back of my mind.

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