2011 Chambolle Musigny

Dujac’s 2011 Chambolle-Musigny is quite intense. Dark red cherries, cloves, mint, tobacco and wild flowers are all woven together nicely. Focused and energetic, the 2011 captures the cooler, more vibrant side of the year. I very much like the intensity and vibrancy here.

The 2011 Chambolle-Musigny Village displays much more fruit on the nose than either the Gevrey or Morey Villages with stony/pavement notes developing. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins, rustic red berry fruit and a composed, slightly dusty finish. Drink now. I have been visiting Jeremy and Alec Seysses at Domaine Dujac for several years now, and it is always one of my favorite ports of call. Alec, looking surprisingly chipper for a new dad, had taken time off nappy duty to guide me through the 2011s this year. I have to confess that I was concerned by the conspicuous nature of the new oak on both their negociant label wines and the entry Village Crus. I felt that 35% new oak tended to overwhelm the fruit and terroir and occasionally impart drying finishes, which is why my scores are parsimonious here. As I tasted through the range toward the flock of Grand Crus, the oak seemed better assimilated, although I would still maintain that the wine is of such quality that the present level of oak risks being superfluous to requirements. Importers: The Sorting Table, Napa, CA; tel. (415) 491-4724; Chambers & Chambers Wine Merchants, San Francisco, CA; tel. (415) 642-5500

(mostly from fruit on the Morey side of the appellation): Good full red. Perfumed aromas of raspberry, orange peel and rose petal. Sappy, spicy and sweet, with dark raspberry fruit complicated by an herbal element. This is normally a very firmly tannic wine in the early going, but it's unusually sweet and tactile today. Seysses notes that the estate is now extracting more gently.