2008 Domaine Dujac Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

Charred meats and dark berries mingle on the nose and firmly- yet finely tannic palate of Dujac’s 2008 Charmes-Chambertin (which I last tasted very shortly before it was bottled). Blackberry, dark cherry, black pepper, and strongly cyanic cherry pit notes add to the unusually low-toned, almost brooding and unshakably persistent carnal intensity of a Charmes that could at most be faulted only for not literally living up to its name, but one that promises a decade or more of fascination and ought probably to stay in the cellar for the next 4-6 years. The Dujac 2008s were not racked until last December, and bottling took place January through March. “The malic acid numbers were high-ish, but not significantly higher than in, say, 2006 or 2001,” says Jeremy Seysses in an effort to explain what he admitted were “for us, excessively late malos. I have a feeling it was a lack of nutrients that were wash out,” he continues, since, after all, “it rained a lot in 2008” with, he adds, “poor fruit set proving to be the vintage’s saving grace. I think we would actually have had less to harvest (i.e. worth keeping) if we had had a better fruit set. There was rot, but can you find it in any of the wines? That’s a credit to how far Burgundy has come along in terms of sorting” (which Dujac does exclusively in the vineyard, not on sorting tables – the name of their U.S. importer ironically notwithstanding). “I didn’t love my lack of options in 2007,” says Seysses of the preceding season, “so we picked early – earlier even than in 2003.” In vinification “we decided not to force too much, and just to keep it charming,” which is exactly how I thought the wines turned out. “At Domaine Dujac, we’re never been that attached to deep color, so we’re quite tolerant (in that regard), and the least thing we wanted to do was make hard wines. I de-stemmed more (than usual, or than in 2008). The fruit felt fragile, so in barrel I kept the wines under a bit more free sulfur than usual, which reinforced their lightness.” Seysses opines that 2007 was not a year in which old selections displayed their overall superiority to clones, because “if yo(‘re Pinots) were riper earlier, you were ripe while it was raining,” whereas in 2008 you could scarcely get too much ripeness. Importer: The Sorting Table, Napa, CA; tel. (415) 491-4724

Good bright red-ruby. Darker aromas of black cherry, blackberry, licorice and violet. Densely packed and sweet, with noteworthy fruit intensity. At once solidly built and graceful. Finishes broad and ripe, with lingering flavors of dark berries and chocolate. Serious juice. This was still finishing its malolactic fermentation.