06 Domaine Parigot Pere et Fils, Meursault "Les Vireuils Dessous"

I'm not a renegade, but I've spent most of my life questioning why things have to be any one way. I like rules, I just hate following them. The older I get, the more I find my revolutions not really being about doing any new, but instead just going back to a certain way I remember things being. And when it comes to chardonnay, I can only revolve back to Burgundy, where this Les Vireuils--a wine like millions of bottles made in and around Meursault--reminds me why. There are better wines, tasted in white rooms or clay caves, but few patently more memorable. We could have had another wine tonight. Sure, we could've tracked down the 2002s. We could've gotten one from a vineyard less easterly-facing and quickly ripening as Les Vireuils, talked about the spice and cellar potential. But we don't have to. We get to just enjoy this. This wine has an incalculably floral aroma, like a springtime spent rolling in lilacs and pollen with your dog before you realized you'd spend the rest of your life working. We'll get back there. This wine is sure of it. Buttery rich, sure, like fresh cream in a room of dry potpourri, which is less a taste than an assurance. Go play. And if the sun burns you, sleep in tomorrow morning. There are days of light to come. There's life after life. We'd bottle it if we could.

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