2005 Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses

Good full red-ruby. Captivating aromas of raspberry, spices and crushed stone. Silky on entry, then pungent and vibrant in the middle palate, with superb life and floral perfume to the raspberry and blackberry fruit (despite the fact that the actual acidity level is not high). This boasts a wonderfully refined texture and finishes with terrific breadth and solid tannic structure. A wine of great breed, and destined for a long life in bottle. There are just two barrels of this juice.

Jadot’s 2005 Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses was in an awkwardly reduced state when I tasted, but a good shaking left no doubt about its sheer length, cut and grip. Gradually, peat, humus, chalk dust, black cherry, and plum pit all come out from under the reduction, displaying a complexity worthy of this great site. Firm and tight, offering tactile evidence of its impressive density, this really stains the palate with bitterly-concentrated black fruit and myriad mineral manifestations, including an invigorating saltiness. This will probably show a more generous side shortly. (Jadot owns only a tiny parcel in this site, enough for around 50 cases. They will also bottle a Les Feusselottes this year, but I did not taste it.) ||Jacques Lardiere has once again presided over a collection for the most part not intended to flatter in its youth, but rather to achieve an eventual balance of fruit acidity with (in this instance frequently quite prominent) tannin. Prolonged post-fermentative extraction promoted a formidably-structured group of wines, which Lardiere expressed no hurry about bottling. Certain of these – particularly from the Cote de Beaune – displayed a slightly drying finishing astringency or simply an austere lack of charm to match their concentration, traits Lardiere suggested might be traceable to drought stress in those sites. A brief July rain that reached the Cote de Nuits but not the Cote de Beaune was critical, he asserts, and all of Jadot’s vines in the northern Cote were picked before the harvest in the south commenced. (Wines from the Domaine Louis Jadot, Domaine Heritiers Louis Jadot, or Domaine Gagey, have been identified with a letter “D” in their listings.)||Also recommended: 2005 Cote de Nuits-Villages Le Vaucrain ($25.00;86+?), 2005 Santenay Clos de Malte ($27.00; 85-87), 2005 Savigny-les-Beaune Aux Guettes (84-86+?), 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges ($37.00; 85-87+?), 2005 Chambolle-Musigny ($50.00; 85-87+?). Wine Advocate.June, 2007