Medium, medium-plus colour. Wide, lovely precise red fruit on the nose, hints of tobacco too – not aromatically the deepest, but very, very nice. Lovely width on the palate and no fat. A wine that understatedly impresses. Fine length with an edge of coconut. Very good, but not worth a special search over many others here.
Chambertin
2005 Potel Nicolas Chambertin
2005 Rousseau Armand Chambertin
Medium-plus colour. A deep and creamy nose with higher red berry tones and quite a bit of creamy oak – quite a modern impression. The palate is absolutely jam-packed with excellent acidity and just so much action. The finish is very, very long but the flavours are more barrel than fruit driven – even hints of coconut. The style of oaky presentation makes me think to Rousseau.
2005 Trapet Père et Fils Chambertin
Sweet, slightly sulfury oak is the main aromatic theme there is a slightly more interesting interlude, but only in the context of this bottle, not the other wines. Apparently less concentrated than wines 4 and 5 but with a lovely width of flavours. Long, but less-so than most. Very fine for sure, but it’s struggling to keep its head above water in this company.
2005 Boisset Jean-Claude Chambertin
1994 Bichot Albert Chambertin
The aromatics remind slightly of the Bachelet (another Charmes?) with their slightly estery hints coupled to caramel and toffee. Not so concentrated as the last wine (no surprise!) but it more than makes up for that by it’s explosion of complexity and interest in the mouth that are pushed very long in the finish by the super acidity. Much more fun, interest and complexity than wine 4. If only I could combine that wine’s aromatics with the flavours of this!
2005 Latour Louis Chambertin
1999 Bouchard Père et Fils Chambertin
Medium-plus ruby-red. The nose starts deep and wide – still primary – slowly providing a soft, savoury bacon-fat background. In the mouth this is intense, wide and mouth-filling. There is still plenty of tannin, faintly astringent and with a bitter chocolate edge that adds a little cream before going very long in the finish. There is a ton of structure here but it’s very well matched by the extract. Excellent, and wait a minute – hmm – I can still buy this cheaper than some ‘mid-range’ 2005 premiers…!
1996 Belland Jean-Claude Chambertin
The colour is a rather deep mahogany with just a hint of ruby-red in the reflections. The nose shouts of toasty oak when first poured but rapidly starts to show a super depth and even height of red shaded fruits then finally some floral violet notes – super complexity and quite impressive. After the 2000 Thomas-Moillard St.Vivant this is excredibly lithe, tight and acid-driven – it takes a few sips to adjust before calm is restored. There’s real intensity here and though the finish is quite understated, it is very long. You sense rather than feel the tannins due to a faint astringency, but they are very well behaved. Slowly the density builds in the mid-palate rounding the wine out more and more – I’d say this conservatively needs another 5 years to make the next step from impressive to excellent. This was really super value costing ‘only’ ~€50, I seem to remember the price jumping significantly for the 1999 vintage, today I’ve lost touch on the pricing.