2012 Charmes Chambertin

The 2012 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru has a ripe redcurrant and cranberry-scented bouquet that is full and voluminous. The palate is ripe and sweet with a candied core of strawberry fruit and a long succulent finish. This is a quintessential Charmes-Chambertin in the making, harmonious and poised. 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

(a blend of Charmes and Mazoyeres): Good bright red. Musky reduction to the wild aromas of raspberry, leather and game. Youthfully imploded on the palate and far less accessible today than the Cazetiers and Estournelles Saint-Jacques, but with a distinct sappiness to the flavors of red berries, brown spices and salty minerality. The superb mounting finish suggests that all this needs is time.

One of the highlights in the range today, the 2012 Charmes-Chambertin is striking in its beauty. The Charmes is a blend of Mazoyerès and true Charmes. Perhaps because of that, it is also wonderfully complete. Savory herbs, licorice, spices and dark red fruit are all very much alive in the glass. The flavors are rich, beautifully layered and voluptuous in a wine that impresses for its balance and class. This is a fabulous showing.