2005 Chambolle Musigny Les Veroilles

Deep ruby. Here the notably ripe nose is much more discreet if every bit as elegant with upper register aromas of red, black and blue fruits tinged with hints of violets and wet stone that dissolve into textured, dusty and beautifully precise flavors that are long and linear. This too seems to be built on a base of minerality, indeed at present it seems almost aggressively so and the transparency is perhaps the best of the entire range as is the complexity though ultimately, I think the Les Cras will catch it. Either way, this is an exceptionally impressive effort.

Barthod’s 2005 Chambolle-Musigny Les Veroilles (of which there will be 150 cases) leads with a Nebbiolo-like bouquet of violets, blond tobacco and black tea with distilled cherry high-tones, all atop an aromatic base of blackberry and purple plum that take on liqueur-like dimensions as the wine overruns the palate. Inner-mouth florality and honeyed, spicy accents add exotic allure to an already intense fruit appeal. While fat in its ripe fruit presentation, this wine boasts a boatload of fine tannins and a palpable sense of mineral extract, finishing with cherry, blackberry, plum, horehound, pepper, honey, chocolate, tobacco and chalk that left me chewing the air afterward. Give this at least 8-10 years rest and expect many more of enjoyment. Sharing expanded wine-making facilities with her husband, Louis Boillot, Gislaine Barthod continues to render some of the purest, most expressively fruity and consistently excellent as well as ageworthy Pinots in Burgundy. All but the Bourgogne and village Chambolle – recently assembled in tank – were tasted from barrel.