2015 Serafin Pere et Fils, Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

The 2015 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru has a powerful bouquet of ample red berry fruit laced with brown spices, still sporting some new oak to be subsumed with bottle age. The palate is well balanced and rounded in texture, displaying plenty of new oak, but this is simpatico with the fruit and there is impressive depth and substance to the finish. It will require several years in bottle, but I suspect this will evolve into a very fine Grand Cru. Tasted blind at the annual Burgfest tasting.

(13.2% natural alcohol): Bright red-ruby. Aromas of blackberry, black cherry and violet. Supple, savory and fine-grained, with dark berry fruit flavors complicated by a hint of game and enticing salty minerality. This wonderfully plush grand cru finishes with suave tannins and lovely fruit persistence. In its usual refined style, and built for a graceful evolution in bottle.

Very sweet start and then many-layered palate. Very appetising even if there's a bitter note on the end. Well done! (JR)