2002 Chambertin
Estimated value
Buying options
Tasting notes
Moderately saturated medium red. Highly nuanced, soil-driven perfume of roasted plum, strawberry, mocha, coffee, underbrush, licorice and herbs, lifted by a fresh menthol note and flinty minerality. Silky and utterly seamless in the mouth, showing terrific vinosity and lift to its flavors of red fruits, minerals and spices. Perfectly integrated acidity gives this wine lovely balance and should enable it to expand further over time. The spicy, peppery, brisk back end boasts lovely rising length, terrific thrust and noteworthy finesse to its tannins. I love this style of Burgundy. Trapet told me that following a cool, rainy May, June was sunny and warm, with the flowering producing a big crop in the younger vines but substantial millerandage in the older ones. Following a hot and dry July, August was variable and showery, with humid weather persisting during the end of the month and the first ten days of September. But a drying north wind then arrived, and the Chambertin was picked on September 25 with small, thick-skinned berries and very healthy grape sugars. (13.4% alcohol; 3.62 pH, 3.6 g/l acidity)
Critic scores
Average Score
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Medium red with a touch of development at the rim. Wild, balsamic scents of redcurrant, smoke and olive tapenade. Fat, sweet, silky and plush but with lovely integrated acidity keeping the wine shapely and lively. Dominated by smoky minerality and underbrush today. Tannins are silky but very present. This is quite approachable but is still holding something in reserve. Jean-Louis Trapet was happy to see that this wine was gaining in flesh; he noted that it was austere, even a bit spiky, in the beginning.
Good medium red. Highly complex aromas of strawberry, coffee, gunflint, smoked meat, underbrush and nutty oak. Silky and lush on entry, then sweet, suave and densely packed in the mid-palate, with strong minerality and noteworthy inner-mouth energy. Very long and vibrant on the back end, finishing with a seductive chocolatey nuance. This opened spectacularly in the recorked bottle to show darker fruit character, notes of tobacco and coffee and a strong sensation of terroir Very impressive, but hold off on this until at least 2012.
Oak spice on the nose and char on the palate but here there is real volume, size, power and concentration and while one can quibble with the oak influence, it's clear that the underlying material is excellent. Despite the fact that there is some wood here, this is much more in the style of the Latricières than the Chapelle. This finishes with big, firm and slightly edgy tannins but they're not hard and this will require on the order of a decade to be at its best.