The breath-taking Meursault Perrieres has an extraordinarily defined and elegant nose of stones, earth and minerals. As Lafon tasted it he smiled and said, "yes, it is classic, like the Charmes." Classic to me means representative of the norm, and this wine is more than that, it is an exquisite example of the heights this vineyard can attain. Harmonious, lively, gorgeously delineated, silky-textured, rich, medium-to-full-bodied, and profoundly deep, this wine's stone and mineral flavors seems to linger on the palate indefinitely. Wow! This magnificent wine should be consumed between 2004 and 2012. The rating, with the range of scores in parentheses, indicates the wine was tasted from cask, not bottle. Dominique Lafon performed more batonnage than usual on his 1996s, "to give them more richness," he said. However, unlike some other vignerons, Lafon abandons the practice when the malos start because he wants his wines to be protected by the carbon dioxide gas that is a by product of a wine's malo-lactic fermentation. Lafon's yields were between 35 and 45 hectoliters/hectare, demonstrating his dedication to quality in this potentially high-yielding vintage. Importer: Classic Wine Imports, Boston, MA; tel (617) 731-6644.