2003 Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses

Good deep red with ruby highlights. Expressive, nuanced nose offers dark raspberry and crushed stone. Dense and velvety but much more vibrant than the foregoing samples despite its atypical sweetness. Wonderfully rich, supple, concentrated wine with superb breadth. Finishes with a suggestion of roasted ripeness and noble tannins. This should develop in bottle for many years.

While I may have preferred the aromas of Mugnier’s other offerings in this vintage, the baked cherry pie and creamed mocha-scented 2003 Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses stands out for its magnificent personality. A seamless wine of immense depth, concentration, as well as length, it is broad, expansive, and jam-packed with plummy black cherries. This intense medium to full-bodied effort wonderfully combines power with grace. Projected maturity: now-2015. A Becky Wasserman Selection / Le Serbet; French Fax: 011-33-3-80-24-29-70,various American importers, including Veritas Imports, Beverly Hills, CA; tel. (310) 205-3800

Slightly liqueur-like blackberry on the nose, lifted by a floral perfume. Wonderfully sweet and creamy but largely avoids the heaviness of the vintage. Still, this is not showing much floral lift today in the middle palate owing to the recent racking and sulfuring. Best today on the long finish, which features extremely fine tannins. Mugnier left a lot of raisins on the vines. He noted that Amoureuses and, to a lesser extent, Bonnes-Mares were his vineyards most sensitive to drought in 2003, as their thin soil does not retain water.