1996 Chambolle Musigny Les Fuees

This bright and medium-to-dark ruby-colored wine offers vivacious aromas of black cherries intermingled with roasting spices and fresh herbs. This medium-to-full-bodied, silky-textured, and well-delineated wine has a complex character composed of ripe blackberries, Asian spices, and freshly cracked black pepper. If it develops more body and loses none of its fruit as it completes its elevage, it will ultimately merit a higher score. Drink it between 2001 and 2007. Ghislaine Barthod was "charmed by this vintage, it has purity of fruit, raspberries mostly, and elegance." She informed me that she had dropped grapes a month or so before the harvest to reduce yields to 42 hectoliters/hectare. Barthod has enlarged her formerly-cramped cellar, and installed an elevator to assist her in making her delicious Chambolles. Since her wines are all produced with the same techniques, including 25% new oak, tasting at this domaine represents a lesson in this village's terroirs. Importer: Neal Rosenthal, Select Vineyards, Shekomeko, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990.