It’s interesting you say this. I don’t have the CM experience of many here, but when my brain goes to CM, I have this impression that the major producers there need a good bit of time - Barthod, Roumier, Mugnier, Vogue, even Drouhin, etc. That may not be entirely true anymore, but that’s my noob perception.
Chambolle has a sense of terroir, yes, but I would not describe it as “elegant and delicate”; Chambolle tends to have iron and a certain type of lacy structure. How elegant and delicate it is depends on which side of the village it is on (Fuees and Sentiers can make very different wine), the winemaker and the vintage. Terroir doesn’t exist in isolation and not all Chambolle is Amoureuses.
In general, if there’s a Chambolle that you’ve liked, I’d explore the intersection of that terroir and that producer first. A 2014 Roumier le Cras is going to be very different than a 2017 Mugnier Fuees.
I don’t think wine exists in isolation; if you can make the same wine anywhere, is it actually good winemaking to make that wine in Feusselottes? To me it would be good winemaking to make good wine from less exalted terroir than to make anonymous wine from great terroir. YMMV.
Roumier needs time because it’s made by Roumier, not because it’s Chambolle. That said, which Roumier needs time depends on which wine it is - current Roumier is far more approachable than Roumier made 5 years ago; Christophe’s wines have gone through a lot of evolutions because he’s updated his approach to winemaking so many times. Mugnier has drunk well early since the early 2000s, other producers do as well. Chambolle does not require more age than any other village.
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Interesting, thanks. When you say “early” can you quantify that?
Early. We had 22 amoureuses this year and it was wonderful.
Amoureuses has tended to be a wine to drink very young or leave for a long time. It can be counterintuitively tough in the intervening period.
Meo is an amazing producer. HIs 2022 wines are standout. Definitely give his 1er Crus a shot.
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Late to the party here.
Meo-Camuzet reds tend to be dark, dense and with some sauvage elements. Some I have found to be bretty. They’re delicious when they’re on, but some underwhelm.
Re Chambolle Musigny, I think it was Clive Coates in his famous work Cote d’Or in characterising the various communes, suggested Chambolle is silk and lace. (forgive me if my memory is flawed). But many Chambolles seem to me to have more in common texturally with Gevrey rather than Vosne.
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What did you like about his 2022s?
I’m glad you said gevrey. I remember my first sip and feeling the weight and breadth on the palate I thought, “wait is this gevrey?” had to look at the bottle to make sure it said chambolle.
Same is sorta true with Volnay, which usually has quite silky textures and perfumed bouquets. But vineyards like Frémiets taste and feel like Pommard.
I guess the takeaway is that commune boundaries were not set by wine geologists.
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Likewise and perhaps a more extreme example. Nuits-St-George is renowned for it’s sterner more tannic structure but Boudots bears far more in common with Vosne-Romanee, bordering the much more highly regarded Malconsorts to the North.
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Good point. And to make my Meo opinion make even less sense than it already doesn’t, in recent (separate) tastings of the Meo 2009 NSG Boudots and Murgers, I preferred the Murgers.
He did seem to enjoy it, but from a price point perspective the Catena may make more sense.
He also may simply want to spend the money on Barthod, where the wines, IMO, are a good benchmark for the more elegant style of Chambolle.
I agree with you that it can be hard to walk past voices with experience but, for Burgundy, trying as much as possible seems like good advice. No need to write off a producer you enjoyed, but no need to stick in one spot either.
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Indeed; and Pommard nowadays is perfectly likely to embody silk and lace.
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Exactly, you summed up everything perfectly. I want my burg to have burg qualities at that price point. I also won’t shy away from Meo because the quality is high. If someone else pays for it, I’ll gladly drink it.
I love the way Berserkers step up and just grit their teeth.
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A fact known to me years ago that led to me buying lots of Boudots. Actually, my group did a horizontal of 2010 Boudots when they first came in and someone brought the Meo, which surprised me with its almost spherical fruit. Sent me on a hunt for some, which I never expected to find because I set the maximum price on Wine-Searcher at less than my friend’s cost pre-arrival. Within a week, a retailer who liked to list wine as available even if still owned by distributors if he thought he had a clientele that might buy it, offered it to me at significantly below my maximum price. So what was I to do? Of course, I had to buy it! Apart from a couple well-priced Bourgogne, the only Meo I have bought (although a close friend is a cellar door customer so I have had others - he tends to open his bottles when young so they have shown too much new oak for me).
I am very late to the party = the long discussion of this thread.
I love the above message by Rahsaan :
Yes - Chambolle, is a village and is very large - when compare to a lieu-diet - but still and definitely has a general quality ( or character = terrior ).
I would not describe Barthod as more elegant, just different. Though, it depends on what era of Barthod one is referring to, since Clement has been making the wines for a number of years now (and I tend to prefer his wines).
No it’s not. One is far less likely to open a bottle that’s “silk and lace” from Pommard than from Volnay. Which producers are producing wines of “silk and lace” in Pommard today? Even the best producers working in Pommard (like Thomas Bouley) are not making wines I would describe this way.
Not all wines conform to preconceived stereotypes but it’s also not random.
You can open Mugnier very young. For what it’s worth, recent vintages can be fairly bretty, so it depends how sensitive you are to that. Recent Roumier might be a better bet - unlike pre-2021 the current Chambolle village drinks well early.
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Obviously a guy who just thinks about the other guys needs.