What about austere?

For me, austere can mean a wine with a lot of structure or very strict demenour – never with the ‘padding’ of ultra-ripe fruit.

A wine that is ‘less ripe’ is defined by less ripe than what? But austere is not necessarily the same as unbalanced – but certainly can be if we discuss the young 1998 burgundies. Note that 98 burgundies were very austere and you could justly say unbalanced when their young and very astringent tannins dominated, but those tannins have significantly melted leaving (usually) nice wines. Pierre was correct in 2000, but in 2008 he would be dead wrong, it just depends on the choice of drinking window you comment on, plus he did like really ripe fruit didn’t he(?) – or maybe that was just the house magazine style.