2007 Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses 1er Cru

Musky peony, brown spices, game, and ripe red berries on the nose of Chateau de Chambolle’s 2007 Chambolle-Musigny Les Amoureuses presage a palate performance of sweet, sumptuous, yet freshly juicy fruit, tinged with rose hip and spices; abundant inner-mouth florality; and savory, lightly-salted meat stock reduction. This deliciously decadent expression of its great site should be worth following for at least a decade but I suspect you’ll have trouble resisting its blandishments over the next several years. Richest and predictably deepest and most elegant among Frederic Mugnier’s 2008s – which I last tasted shortly before their March bottling – did not experience the exceptionally late malo-lactic transformation that characterized so many wines of that vintage. Yields were especially low thanks not only to vintage-typical millerandage, but – particularly in the case of Les Amoureuses – to the vines’ slow recovery from the shock of 2007 hail. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70

Bright medium red. High-toned aromas of sweet red fruits, mint and spices; the most detailed and delicate nose among the 2007s today. Wonderfully sweet without being exaggerated in any way, conveying lightly saline, soil-driven flavors of cherry, raspberry, minerals and flowers. Here the terroir speaks more loudly than the vintage. A 2007 of uncanny energy, finishing with fine-grained tannins and enticing lingering perfume.