A charming, fleshy wine, the 2009 Chevalier-Montrachet Grand Cru offers up a generous bouquet of ripe citrus fruit, confit lemon, pears, warm bread, honeycomb and mandarin. On the palate, it's full-bodied, lavish and enveloping, with a textural attack, a rich and ample core of fruit and a long, expansive finish. This is a ripe but open-knit vintage of Leflaive's Chevalier, even though with 13.45% alcohol it's lower-octane than all the top vintages of the Pierre Morey era. If the wine has a fault, it's one extensible to the vintage as a whole: a lack of liveliness and tension.

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An ultra-pure and high-toned if ripe and slightly exotic nose is comprised by mature notes of mineral-based reduction, spiced pear and acacia blossom. There is lovely energy to the overtly stony and rich yet nicely detailed broad-shouldered flavors that despite their significant size and weight, are crystalline in their transparency on the lingering finish where the only nit is a hint of warmth. For my taste, this has arrived at its peak though it should have no difficulty holding here for another decade or so though with that said, I doubt it will improve much from here. Note that a bottle tasted in March 2023 was badly premoxed.

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