2005 Gevrey Chambertin Les Cazetiers
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Tasting notes
Deep red-ruby. Knockout, thoroughly ripe nose offers wild dark berries, black cherry, smoked meat, mocha and licorice. Fat, dense and stuffed with sweet, vibrant fruit, with a stony character and superb energy serving to intensify the wine's flavors. Opens out impressively on the back, finishing sappy, juicy and backward, with palate-staining persistence. Always a rather masculine style, and a huge success in 2005.
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Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
(40+ year old vines that sit directly behind the cuvérie). A pungently earthy mix of brooding red and dark berry fruit aromas trimmed in subtle wood notes precede the equally big and robust full-bodied flavors that are sleekly muscled and possess plenty of pop on the intense, complex, balanced and long finish. There is slightly better definition here and while this is not especially elegant either, the superior balance on the finish gives it the edge but again, considerable patience is not only required but essential. In short, this is a (very) big Caz.
The 2005 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Cazetiers offers an intensely bright nose of salted fresh and distilled red raspberry and pungent spices, saturates the palate with intense, tart and bright yet subtly caramelized red fruits, and finishes with rapier, pure, distilled-fruit intensity, ginger spice and salty minerality. The carnal side of this Pinot and its depth of mineral character emerges as it slowly unfolds in the glass. An invigorating, energetic wine – more embryonic and raw than most of its stable mates – this has fuel to burn for the long haul. Also recommended: 2005 Bourgogne ($20.00; 86); 2005 Gevrey-Chambertin ($28.00; 86). It seems fitting that the wines of Serafin – who trained as a carpenter – would be surrounded by new wood. For all of their intense fruit (heightened by a week’s pre-fermentative cold soaking), there is a certain stylistic stiffness which, taken together with the natural concentration and structure of the vintage, suggests one would do well to wait six or eight years before pulling any corks. Serafin – who likens them to more concentrated, corseted cousins of his 1999s -- does not demur. He also seemed happy to note that he had managed to keep this year’s collection under 14% alcohol. Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083.
(from vines planted in 1956) Deep ruby-red. Wild dark fruits and game on the sauvage, quintessentially Gevrey nose. Dense, sappy and sweet, with terrific mineral lift giving definition and lift to the middle palate. Finishes with broad, ripe tannins and superb palate-staining persistence.