2015 Chambolle Musigny Les Amoureuses

(15% vendange entier ): Bright, dark red-ruby. Knockout nose combines black cherry, dark raspberry, spices, black tea and musky underbrush. Wonderfully plush and velvety, but with pungent notes of blood orange and minerals energizing and lifting the flavors of red berries and spices. There's nothing particularly 2015-like about this wine, despite the fact that it's carrying 14.2% alcohol. The very long, rising, suavely tannic finish leaves the taste buds quivering.

The 2015 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Amoureuses, unsurprisingly, was the best of the domaine's premier crus with lush blueberry and black cherry fruit, an underlying mineralité and fine delineation. The palate is medium-bodied with a spicy, attacking opening. It wants to steal the show. There is plenty of sappy red fruit mixed with white pepper towards the structured and very focused finish. Everything is neatly controlled here, which bodes well for the long-term.

(from a .45 ha parcel of 45+ year old vines). Ultra-spicy black pinot fruit aromas combine with those of tea, violet and again discreet but not invisible oak toast. The succulent, rich and delicious flavors possess excellent volume and mid-palate density while exhibiting a pronounced minerality on the firm, serious and built-to-age finale. Patience will be required here as I suspect that this will shut down hard once in bottle. Dec 2016, www.burghound.com