A few stellar Chambolle's

I have been under some pressure by a specific group member to publish “notes” (I didn’t take notes) on a not so recent tasting of Chambolle wines. The pressure is understandable as this was pretty clearly the best set of wines this year, and perhaps the best set in a long while. They were flat-out wonderful. So here’s what I remember:


1990 Coche-Dury Meursault–Dark gold color, nutty, citrus, great body. Nose a little muted but came around with time. Feeling a bit aged, but still a pleasure. Not sure if this is a representative bottle, but wouldn’t wait a lot longer.


2008 Drouhin C-M ‘Amoureuses’–Bright red. Beautiful, penetrating raspberry/cherry fruit. Plays in the higher tones, and still fairly primary, but still with complexity and plenty of deeply engaging depth. Young, but oh so enjoyable. A real pleasure.


2002 Drouhin ‘Musigny’–Dark cherry (but not quite “black” cherry), ripe, a richness on the palate that’s a little atypical for Drouhin, wonderful depth and developing complexity. Puts a lie to my usual bias about 2002’s. Still young–I would anticipate years of further positive development.


1999 Jadot ‘Bonnes-Mares’–Darker blue fruit, moving out of the cherry spectrum. Plums, blueberries. A bit more “wild” or edgy feeling. As usual, seems like it’s from a different commune. Outclassed by the Musigny’s, but still a very good showing.


1996 A-F Gros V-R ‘Aux-Reas’–someone snuck this in as they were out of Chambolle. Charming, suave wine with a little Vosne spice. Tannins perfectly integrated. Great showing for a village level wine.


1996 F. Mugnier C-M ‘Fuees’–Mid weight wine in a great spot. Almost seems like a mini-me of the following Musigny, perhaps with a little more brambly fruit. A little lighter and higher toned than the Musigny as well, but really not fair to compare. Nicely mature and exquisitely balanced.


1996 F. Mugnier ‘Musigny’–A stellar wine firing on all cylinders and in a very good spot currently. Great body, length, ethereal nose of dark red cherry/berry fruit, same array of fruit on the palate with some underbrush. Seductive, spherical wine, that just goes on and on. Perfect acid/tannin balance. You are very lucky if you have some of this tucked away.

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Beautiful wines. I owned several 08 Chambolle Les Amoureuses from Drouhin. That wine has been incredible from day one. Nice notes.

Thanks for the very evocative notes, John.

I thought you were going to ding me for “deeply engaging depth”.