2007 Charmes Chambertin

Raw beef and fresh cherry mingle with clove, and pepper on the nose and palate of the Ligniers’ 2007 Charmes-Chambertin, which offers a brightness and grip especially admirable in the context of its vintage. As with the corresponding 2008, the new wood is better-integrated here than in some other wines of the line-up, and the spicy, subtly tart finishing penetration certainly calls forth the next sip. I suspect this will be worth following for at least half a dozen years. Hubert and Laurent Lignier – for more on whose recent evolution as a domaine and as negociants, consult my report in issue 186 – had one barrel from 2008 still stuck in malo last February, and several others had only finished by Christmas. No wines had been bottled (though they were assembled) when I last tasted them in February; indeed even the 2007s here were not bottled until May and June of 2009. Natural alcohol in the 2008 collection peaked at 13% in the Charmes and Combottes (due to extreme millerandage there, notes Laurent Lignier) and all of the wines were very lightly-chaptalized. Sorting was much less arduous for them in 2008 than 2007, he adds. As is evident from my rating, the array of wines from lesser locations or that incorporate purchased fruit have not (in the years since the splitting-up of control over this estate) nearly approached the consistently outstanding quality that the three or four top Lignier bottlings continue to exhibit. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990