camus 1998 chambertin

8.1.2012billn

camus-1998-chambertin

You may remember that I was mildly surprised by how good (or at least not bad) the quality of the Camus wines were: Well as the 2010 En-Primeurs are being rolled out, you might find you can buy this Chambertin for less than some ‘worthy’ producer’s villages Vosne, Chambolle or Gevrey – frankly ridiculous – assuming this Chambertin is any good of-course.

It turns out (in absolute terms) to be a very good wine indeed! It would clearly lag behind some other Chambertin, but this wine is indeed redolent of that vineyard, and the latest vintage is yours for only Euros 47 ex cellar. Remind me again of the cost of the Mugnier, Cathiard, Rousseau, Grivot (et al) 2010 villages…

1998 Camus, Chambertin
An auction purchase, but the bottles look in perfect condition – twirling capsules too – though I expected wax. Medium-plus colour with just a little amber at the rim. The nose has plenty of depth, understated leafy forest floor and a faint creamy edge to the muscled, dark-red fruit. With time the nose fills out with a hint of mushroom and an even clearer dark-red berry fruit. In the mouth this is full, reasonably intense and with a large-scaled flavour profile in the mid-palate. The length is understated but for all that, very impressive. The tannin is relatively faint but quite fine and still enveloping, perhaps adding to a little bitter-chocolate impression to the fruit in the mid-palate. And as a direct counterpoint? The Eugénie VR Brûlées is smoother, but has less scale and flavour dimension, it may be more elegant, but it seems there’s only so much you can extract from that terroir – despite charging almost 3x the price for it!
Rebuy – Yes

Fair to say I’m not unhappy to have 5 more of these in the cellar; I expect they will keep improving for at least another 5-10 years…

Agree? Disagree? Anything you'd like to add?

There are 2 responses to “camus 1998 chambertin”

  1. Will9th January 2012 at 8:21 amPermalinkReply

    Hi Bill,

    The pricing certainly makes these wines very enticing (the note makes the wine sound pretty tasty too!). Thanks for sharing.

    Do these guys have a website / e-mail address for contact?

    Cheers,
    Will

    • billn9th January 2012 at 4:17 pmPermalinkReply

      Try this Will:
      domaine.camus.gevrey at orange.fr
      Cheers

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