2012 Chambertin Clos de Beze

The 2012 Chambertin Clos-de-Beze Grand Cru has a slap of strawberry jam on the nose that just needs a little more eloquence and sophistication. Perhaps that will develop during the remainder of its elevage, because the palate is very impressive: rounded, powerful and deep. There are copious raspberry and strawberry coulis flavors that defined the very persistent finish. I will give this the benefit of doubt. It is always a pleasure to visit the indefatigable Mounir Saouma at his hideaway winery just off the Beaune periphique. He is a winemaker you can jest with, and he is often victim of my sardonic Essex humor (for example, when enthusing about obtaining one of five barrels of a premier cru, I dryly enquired whether the other four were sold off for distillation - I would not say that to Aubert de Villaine.) And I appreciate Mounir's wines. They used to taste a little too fat and almost over-powering in their youth, but I think he is fine-tuning his reductive winemaking style, achieving more freshness and vitality. I tasted his 2012 reds since the whites were still undergoing malolactic. Among the tidal wave of opinions, one that he emphasized was that to capture the quality of the vintage under cork, the wines should be bottled late, and not in spring when Burgundy will resound to the clinking of glass. Mounir also told me that he paid 50% more from wines in 2012 than in 2011, but that he intends to keep prices within 15% increase. Importers: Vintus LLC, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (914) 769-3000, Atherton Imports, Menlo Park, CA; tel. (650) 328-6639