Village Meursault is the largest cuvée from Coche. It is based on two parcels in Narvaux, up the slope from Premier Cru Genevrières. Like its neighbour, it has an incredibly exotic nose with tropical and citrus fruit. The spice and smoke from the cask play a well-integrated but supporting role, and the texture combines a lush, silky feel with lively acidity and impressive length. It is simply superb and provides much more pleasure than the premiers crus of most producers and at least as much potential to age. (Drink between 2025-2045)

As we were a group of five tasters, I did not get a chance to ask which lieu à dit bottling this was from the domaine. Unless Raphaël has changed things since his father’s day, there are usually a Tillets, Narvaux and Vireuils Dessus bottlings here, and they have typically not been blended, but just sold under the straight Meursault AC label. In any event, no matter which vineyard it hails from, the wine is outstanding in 2019, delivering a complex bouquet of apple, passion fruit, a beautiful base of chalky soil tones, just a hint of iodine, almond, orange blossoms and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and complex, with a lovely core of ripe fruit, excellent cut and backend mineral drive and a long, zesty and beautifully balanced finish. Great juice.

Aromas of crisp Anjou pear, lime zest, orange oil, fresh hazelnuts and white flowers introduce the 2019 Meursault Village, a medium to full-bodied, layered and incisive wine that's chalky and concentrated, with racy acids and an abundance of structuring dry extract. When I was served this wine blind a month after tasting it at the domaine, I mistook it for its 2017 counterpart, which should give some indication of the pitch-perfect balance Raphaël Coche succeeded in attaining in the more extreme 2019 vintage.