2014 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru Les Mazoyères La Vougeraie

These are the oldest vines at the domaine, planted in 1902 and located entirely in Charmes- Mazoyères. It's quite an oaky wine, but the staves are balanced by fruit power, texture and concentration. Spicy, bold and full of vigour, it's an unusually intense Charmes. 2019-30.

Bright purple, rich and juicy but also a suggestion of vegetal. Perhaps this is more an aspect of some whole bunches. There is impressive deep dark fruit made livelier by the minerals of the whole bunch approach. This makes for a very complete and very attractive wine.

A beautifully complex nose offers up notes of red currant, blue pinot fruit, plum and plenty of pungent earth nuances that are trimmed in just enough wood to notice. The velvety yet strikingly intense flavors brim with sap that renders the mid-palate more approachable though it seems blatantly clear from the very firm and robust finish that this distinctly serious effort is going to require plenty of cellar time before it arrives at its apogee. In sum, this hugely persistent effort is first-rate.

Expressive dark berry fruit on the nose. The palate has some weight and lashings of dark cherry fruit, with decent length to boot. A masculine style of Pinot Noir with big ageing potential. Complex and fascinating.

The 2014 Charmes-Chambertin les Mazoyères Grand Cru includes 80% whole cluster fruit this year, a high percentage due to the age of the vines planted in 1902. There is fine delineation here, precise black cherry and cranberry scents with a touch of cold granite. It is a nose that demands respect, deservedly so. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, supple black and red fruit, very pure and smooth with a graceful, marmalade- tinged finish that lingers. This should grow up to be a very seductive, comely Charmes-Chambertin with a long future ahead.

Good deep healthy red, the darkest of these 2014s to this point by a wide margin. Fresh scents of dark cherry, minerals, licorice, smoke and earth. Broad, fat and sweet but nicely sappy; I'm not sure I would have picked the vintage blind. The fine-grained black fruit flavors carry impressively through a very long finish. This highly concentrated, edge-free, youthful wine really saturates the mouth and stimulates the taste buds.