1996 Chambolle Musigny Les Charmes

Super-ripe and jammy black fruits, road tar, and rose blossoms can be found in this outstanding wine's aromas. It is intensely sweet, thick, refined, full-bodied, and reserved. This beauty saturates the palate and aftertaste with loads of candied blackberries, cassis liqueur, and sugar-coated blueberries. Drink it between 2003 and 2008. Ghislaine Barthod was "charmed by this vintage, it has purity of fruit, raspberries mostly, and elegance." She informed me that she had dropped grapes a month or so before the harvest to reduce yields to 42 hectoliters/hectare. Barthod has enlarged her formerly-cramped cellar, and installed an elevator to assist her in making her delicious Chambolles. Since her wines are all produced with the same techniques, including 25% new oak, tasting at this domaine represents a lesson in this village's terroirs. Importer: Neal Rosenthal, Select Vineyards, Shekomeko, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990.

The 1996 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru les Charmes was a substitute at the Ghislaine-Barthod tasting to replace a corked 1988 Veroilles. When first presented, I summed it up as a rather "dull book". There's nothing intrinsically faulty, but it just lacked any mote of excitement. Advising that we had nothing to lose in decanting it, certainly aeration over 60 minutes benefited this wine, allowing some earthy black, slightly peaty fruit to emerge. The palate is masculine, foursquare and perhaps too serious for its own good. It's the kind of wine you would finish but not remember with ardent fondness. Tasted September 2015. Nov 2015, www.robertparker.com