CHAPELLE CHAMBERTIN

Good deep red-ruby. Musky aromas of redcurrant, dark cherry, smoke and animal fur, lifted by a hint of peony. Juicy, tight and imploded, with its serious density and underlying personality hidden today. But this wine's lovely harmonious acidity and definition, in conjunction with its ripe tannins, suggest it will blossom beautifully with seven or eight years of cellaring. Rating: 90 Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar (Oct 2010)

Given the formidable tannins and rather austere minerality of several other wines in Perrot-Minot’s present collection, I have to admit that I approached a glass of his 2008 Chapelle-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes with a bit of trepidation, knowing the proclivities of that site. Charred red meat, game, blackberry, iris, and Lapsang tea, along with a suffusion of chalk and peat make for a formidably intense impression, and this wine’s tannins, while fine-grained, are certainly abundant. But invigoration and levity are introduced by way of primary fresh berry juiciness (including a squeeze of red currant) and strong salinity, plus a lovely sweetness gains the upper hand in the expression of blackberry and dark cherry fruit, banishing any hint of austerity from the stoniness, bitter black tea, and fruit pit elements in this wine’s palate-staining finish. This should be a 15-20 year keeper. (June 2010) Rating: 94 David Schildknecht, The Wine Advocate (Sept 2010)

A more elegant and airier nose of lightly spiced purple fruit that displays hints of briar and crushed herbs merges into rich, full and beautifully delineated big-bodied flavors where there is an overt minerality on the tension-filled, pure and driving finish that possesses excellent length. I very much like the delivery here as there is a real sense of harmony of expression. Rating: 91-94 Allen Meadows, www.Burghound.com (Jul 2010)