Leflaive Revisited (Olivier)

Domaine Leflaive has occupied a special place in Burgundy for the longest time. Regarded as one of if not THE finest white Burgundy estates. There may be healthy debate about who is on top nowadays. Whether that is Coche-Dury or Domaine D'Auvenay, Ramonet, Lafon, PYCM, Henri Boillot, Roulot but you exclude Leflaive at your own peril. What is undeniable however, is that Leflaive owns some of the best vineyards in puligny montrachet for ages and have been fully bio-dynamic for 25 years (since 1997) by this point. So why bring up a very well known domaine whose prices are already sky high? 

Well here is where it gets interesting. 

Olivier Leflaive is the cousin of the now deceased Anne-Claude Leflaive running Olivier Leflaive Freres. After leaving the domaine to develop his negociant business 5 plots in the below vineyards were placed on an 18 year lease to Domaine Leflaive. This lease ended in 2010 and those very same biodynamic parcels reverted back to Olivier Leflaive (see below).

1) Meursault 1er Cru Blagny Sous le Dos d’Ane - ?no info - vine age: 26 years
2) Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru les Folatirres - 0.20 Ha  - vine age: 39 years
3) Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru les Pucelles - 0.3 Ha  - vine age: 60 years
4) Batard Montrachet Grand Cru - 0.11 Ha - vine age: 50 years
5) Chevalier Montrachet Grand Cru - 0.20 Ha  - vine age: 56 years

Anyway if you want to try what were effectively Domaine Leflaive wines at a fraction of the going price check out these Olivier Leflaive domaine wines from 2010 onwards.

There isn't much of it and if we very roughly estimate yields ~40hl/ha then we should have about. 

? - Meursault 1er Cru Blagny Sous le Dos d’Ane 
~1,067 bottles - Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru les Folatirres 
~ 1,600 bottles - Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru les Pucelles 
~ 587 bottles - Batard Montrachet Grand Cru 
~ 1,067 bottles - Chevalier Montrachet Grand Cru  

It is entirely possible that actual yields are lower than 40hl/ha given the age of the vines. If this is indeed the case, production numbers could easily be a lot less.

Now to be clear, you need to know how to tell the difference between the negociant and domaine bottlings but this is quite simple. 

(a) They need to have "Recolte du Domaine" on the label (please see below highlighted in red) 
and
(b) They need to be one of the 5 vineyards mentioned above.

Good luck - good hunting!

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