-
2001 Joseph Drouhin Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru - France, Burgundy, Côte de Nuits, Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru (7/12/2009)
Giving on the nose from the get go, this has a floral and dusty quality that definitely points to Chambolle but the palate is clenched by acid and comes across as tart and closed. However, after a couple of hours it opens up signifigantly and the palate flushes out with sappy sweet red fruit. As it opens, the Chambolle character does not necessarily disappear, but a strong sauvage comes into play, the wine gains weight and presents a more masculine character. Wouldn’t be hard to believe this was a Gevrey wine at this point. Either way, a bit of slightly coarse tannin and a refreshing acidic backbone remain, and the wine is a pleasure now with or without food and should easily have another 5-10 years in the tank. (91 pts.)
Posted from CellarTracker
The sauvage notes sound like a wine Luke Bavarious would enjoy. Slowly. Manfully. In a noir-ish sort of way.
Josh,
Thanks for the note on this; I loved it on release but haven’t had it since so very good to hear how it’s doing.
Cheers,
-Robert
I drank a bottle 2-3 years ago that underwhelmed a little, this bottle was much better. For my tastes, I’d say drink anytime over the next 5 years…
It’s interesting that you picked up some Gevrey character in the '01. I bought 10 bottles of the '05 about a year ago at a very good price. I drank two and deposited the rest in off site storage. The '05 very much reminded me of a cross between a Chambolle and a Gevrey. It will be interesting to see if evolves more true to its roots in 3 or 4 years. I hope so.
Very intrepid of you Josh to be opening this wine at such a young age. Did you decant it or just let it evolve in the glass over time? I have a fair bit of 2001 red Burgundy in the cellar, but I have not yet started trying even the village wines yet, as the few '01s that I have had in vertical tastings seemed to be both too young still and showing such good promise for down the road that I want to give the whole vintage a few more years before starting to drink them regularly. I had a bottle of the '93 Chambolle Premier Cru from Drouhin earlier this year and it was really in such a nice spot now (and perhaps still likely to improve with further bottle age) that I have decided to keep my hands off of the 2001 for several more years. I would guess that you could stretch out your window of drinkability on the wine a bit further into the future beyond the next five years, as the wine will probably gain more “classic” Chambolle character from 2013 onwards.
Best,
John
Thanks for the comments John. My burg collection starts with 98 and isn’t really deep until 05/06, so I do some baby killing. Such is life, too bad I didn’t start collecting when I was 20! I’ve been dipping into 98s, 00s and a few 01s and trying to leave the 99s and 02s alone more. I don’t have a ton of Drouhin experience so this was a good data point for me, and I have no problem believing you that it can go further out than I was guessing. In any case, we certainly enjoyed the bottle plenty and had no problem finishing it, so I have no regrets opening it now.
Do you know what plots in Chambolle this wine comes from? I have noticed that Fourrier’s Gevrey Aux Combottes (a wine that I like a lot) is a bit more Chambolle in character than his other Gevrey wines. Combining that with what I understand of some of the N vs. S vineyards of Chambolle, I might guess that the Drouhin 1er is sourced from vineyards between Gruenchers and Gevrey, down the slope from Bonnes Mares, but I wouldn’t want to put money on it 
I’m not entirely certain, but I think Haut Doix and Combottes are in the mix.
Sorry for the delay in getting back to this thread, but I wanted to check with Veronique Drouhin to make sure I had the vineyards right (I did not recall all of them) before posting here, and I am now on the road and only have very limited access to the internet. But a quick post on the mix of vineyards in the Premier Cru bottling- the melange does include Combottes and Les Hauts Doix, in addition to Les Baudes, Noirots, Borniques and Les Plantes. Veronique has told me in the past that the Les Baudes in certain top vintages is so good that it gets bottled on its own, rather than going into the blended Premier Cru, and when it is available, then it is a premier cru to keep an eye out for. The last vintage where it stood on its own was 1999 that I am certain of, and it seems likely that it was also bottled on its own in 2005.
Best,
John
Can I just say that it’s pretty baller that John gets to call Veronique up to fact check???
Actually, I just emailed Veronique, as it is problematic to call her, given that one never knows if she is going to be found at PST working at Domaine Drouhin in Oregon, or nine hours later in Beaune, or somehwere else on the globe doing promotional work for the either of the two domaines… the possibilities of waking her up from a sound sleep are quite numerous, given the amount of travel she has to do every year. But most questions concerning anything in Chambolle-Musigny get a very quick response from her, as this is where her heart lies.
Glad to hear this is coming around a bit. I loved it on release but a bottle at around the 2-3 year mark was showing surprisingly ripe and (stereotypically) Californian. I buried my remaining two bottles at that point in the hopes that someday it would revive. My confidence is restored but I’ll probably still give it another 5 years or so before trying the next one.