The pristine bottle of Ramonet's 1996 Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru Les Vergers was showing brilliantly, unwinding in the glass with a complex bouquet of Meyer lemon, oatmeal, crisp orchard fruit and honeycomb that's still strikingly youthful. Green-gold in hue, the wine is medium to full-bodied, satiny and incisive, with the racy spine of acidity that characterizes the vintage on full display, but without any of the hints of premature senility that also bedevils this year. Long, tensile and still youthfully reserved, this is a 1996 that's aging at a glacial pace; while it may always remain comparatively compact in style, each bottle I drink makes me less and less inclined to bet against it.