Does my nose deceive me? This smells of stems – not entirely smoky, more the slightly herbaceous version – it’s better if you keep it below 18°C. Very good freshness, intensity and length too but the flavour although there is some sweetness also has a borderline ripeness about it. The finish is very good. Although I don’t find stems ‘criminal’, this wine is far from it’s drinking peak today – based on my experience of other stemmy cuvées (I’m assuming that there really are stems within) this will have a great perfume, but only from 2014…

Medium-plus cherry-red colour. The nose has dark flashes of oak, suggestions but never any hard evidence of reduction and a very nice brambly dark fruit. Intense, very good fruit and a good villages-level of depth and complexity. Mouth-watering modestly in the finish. David delivers another superb bourgogne.

From vines between Morey and Chambolle, but on the ‘wrong’ side of the Route Nationale 74. Deep colour. The nose is a brooding affair with faint spice and herb top-notes and a tight concentration of fruit below, eventually a faint milk-chocolate note surfaces. In the mouth this is unexpectedly intense for the appellation, rather tight and narrow in form which allows the acidity to gain the upper-hand – the classic face for many 2005s now. The tannin is a background velvet texture and the fruit is dark and fresh, finishing with a dried cranberry/raisin element. I suspect that this wine would have been absolutely singing a couple of years ago. Today, despite the appellation, this is a wine about future potential – I still find much to enjoy, but such a shame it was my only bottle. I don’t see either Morey or Chambolle in this, but it is anyway very impressive indeed, this clearly has the intensity, structure and balance of a very decent villages!