2005 Domaine Albert Morot Beaune Les Teurons 1er Cru

Bright ruby-red. Very ripe aromas of black raspberry, dark chocolate and game; this smells like a wine from Gevrey. The thickest and largest wine in the cellar, with very full flavors of youthful black fruits and licorice. Unusually ripe and smooth for this cuvee, mounting impressively toward the back, where the broad, sweet tannins arrive late. This boasts superb palate presence.

From a relatively old average age of vines immediately behind the winery, Choppin’s 2005 Beaune Teuorns smells of blackberry, cassis, roasted meats, and tobacco. Concentrated and firm on the palate, it lacks early textural allure, and its dark flavor hues represent another instance of 2005 being serious at the expense of charm, but this tightly-stitched Pinot lays down impressively long traces of black fruits, meat, herbal concentrates and chalk and has a decade or more of potential. Geoffrey Choppin de Janvry reports that vine stress was becoming an issue in mid-September, so he picked his crop in just a few days. And speaking of haste, new stainless steel fermenters that replace the old wooden uprights here this year permitted Choppin to assemble and bottle all of his wines at nearly the same time, with the result that those I tasted had all either just been bottled or just prepped for imminent bottling. Around 50% new wood was employed, regardless of appellation, with the result that some wines showed overt oakiness and some did not. Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083