2005 Chambolle Musigny Les Charmes

A 2005 Chambolle-Musigny Les Charmes (from the upper reaches of that large vineyard) smells of bitter chocolate-covered black cherries and pralines, fills the mouth with ripe rich fruit but also with salty, stony minerality, engenders a sense of doughy richness and substantiality, and finishes with long, consistent black cherry, toasted nuts, chocolate and chalk. This is not a Charmes of particular elegance, much less delicacy, but neither does so much fatness and sweetness of fruit become heavy or tiring. Laurent Ponsot (like his father) vinifies to the beat of a different drummer, whether it is in his employment of a basket press from 1945, his reliance on exclusively (truly) old barrels, his aggressive pigeage, or his virtual refusal (since 1988) to sulfur the wines (nitrogen and CO2 are administered at bottling). The results are as distinctive as the methods, but also profoundly impressive and proven to age magnificently. Certainly one has to adjust to a background level of chocolate and that lack of a certain “pep” that is otherwise conveyed, MSG-wise, to wines given a normal quota of sulfur during their elevage. But after a few samples – and especially when I re-tasted these wines “cold” at 7:00 A.M. – I was fully attuned to their virtues. The alcohols in 2005 are as high as 15%, but you do not notice it, even when told. Asked when he intends to bottle, Ponsot replies “I don’t know. Maybe one or two in the Spring, maybe before the harvest, maybe afterward.” Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980-8802.