2009 Charmes Chambertin Tres Vieilles Vignes
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Tasting notes
Good medium-deep red, a bit less saturated than the 2010. Slightly roasted on the nose, and less complex than the 2010, as much red as black fruit in character, offering very ripe, smoky aromas of cherry ganache , redcurrant and licorice. Fleshy, sweet and full on the palate, with its expressive flavors of redcurrant, cocoa powder, mocha, coffee, spices, mint and tobacco conveying an almost liqueur-like voluptuousness that's somehow leavened by salinity. The wine's new oak component is apparent today in the middle palate but its substantial fine-grained tannins are fully integrated. Spreads out impressively to saturate the palate on the long finish, which leaves behind a note of cherry pit and comes across as a touch aggressive following the 2010. Pierre-Jean Roty told me that the finished pH for his family's Charmes-Chambertin is normally in the range of 3.4 to 3.5 and that this wine was not acidified. In fact, he noted that 2003 was the last vintage that was acidified here. (13.9% alcohol; 3.39 pH; this hot growing season yielded a full crop of 40 hectoliters per hectare, noted Pierre-Jean Roty)
Critic scores
Average Score
The Wine Advocate
Stephen Tanzer, Vinous
More reviews and scores
Good deep red. Very ripe aromas of cherries macerated in alcohol, mocha and wild herbs. Generous, pliant and highly concentrated, with lovely floral, mineral and minty high notes lifting the ripe cherry fruit. Finishes tactile, chewy and very long, with noble, sweet tannins and hints of game and menthol. These vines date back to 1885, but Philippe Roty is quick to point out that there has been a lot of repiquage (replanting of individual vines as they die) along the way. I would not be surprised if this wine merited a higher score 10 or 15 years down the road.
A very ripe nose of cassis, warm earth and black cherries is trimmed in soft wood notes. There is superb richness to the opulent and mouth coating big-bodied flavors that possess positively buckets of extract, all wrapped in a hugely long and mildly toasty finish. This is not necessarily more complex than the Griotte though there is more underlying material so it may be in time.
Deep red-ruby, the darkest of the range. Superripe aromas of black cherry, tobacco, licorice, mint, minerals, violet and orange peel; even the nose conveys an impression of tightly coiled energy. The palate delivers almost confectionery sweetness but with solid underlying spine to the black fruit, violet and licorice flavors. Finishes with noble, sweet, fine-grained tannins and great perfumed, spicy, slow-building persistence. This is almost painfully backward and will need a good decade to express itself.