2023 Joseph Drouhin, Chambertin-Clos de Beze Grand Cru

The 2023 Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru is showing beautifully, wafting from the glass with notes of dark berries, plums, spices and espresso roast. Full-bodied, ample and velvety, it's seamless and fleshy, with lively acids and a long, gently oak-inflected finish. It's the usual blend of domaine and purchased fruit.

The 2023 Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze Grand Cru undergoes two vinifications from Drouhin's own parcel and one from purchased fruit that was picked late. It has an intense nose with raspberry, mulberry, licorice and bergamot notes. The palate is medium-bodied and here that late-picked fruit does make its mark, perhaps shaving away some of the delineation and nerve that I discerned on the previous vintage. It is quite peppery on the finish and aftertaste. Give this four or five years in a bottle.

Cask sample. Like walking through the (Narnia?) wardrobe. Wood and doors and wooden panels and dark dust-musk-fragrant corners and then, boom, light and cloves, dark plums and wild-plums grilled on dark-rye toast. Very wood spicy. Toasted cumin. Tannins that scratch and pull and resist and draw you in and push you back. Very, very exciting and insistent. Long green-lead line. Leafy, meadowsweet fragrance on the finish. Absolutely thrilling. (TC)