2011 Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses

Bright red-ruby. Wild aromas of raspberry jam, chocolate, mocha, roasted herbs and underbrush. Concentrated, ripe and creamy-rich, but with surprisingly sound acidity giving shape to the blackberry and spice flavors. A bit heavy and chocolatey for Amoureuses but this wine will lose some of its baby fat as it evolves in bottle. Finishes with ripe tannins and just enough lift. (ST)

(sulfited just two days prior to my visit; 25% vendange entier): Deep, bright ruby. Deep aromas of black raspberry and roast coffee. Thick and a bit gamey, but with plenty of juicy vibrancy too. Reticent flavors of musky black and red fruits turn distinctly salty on the back end, which features substantial broad tannins and surprising energy. This dense, glyceral, rather extreme wine began with potential alcohol of 11.9% and was chaptalized to 12.9%, according to Nicolas Groffier.

Robert Groffier’s 2011 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Amoureuses was tasted blind in a line-up of 2011 Amoureuses in Holland. It has a deep ruby color, but the nose is far more backward than the first two wines, a little more herbaceous and tertiary (perhaps with some more stem addition?) but still well-defined. But it is certainly less flamboyant than Drouhin and Lucien le Moine’s Amoureuses ’11, though returning on my second run-through, the wine unfurls supremely well and gains intensity. The palate is very intense and very fresh, very citric with good tension, although it does not quite have the complexity that the aromatics suggest. Reticent and masculine, this needs 4-5 years in bottle. Tasted June 2014. Aug 2014, www.robertparker.com