Cassis and elderberry preserves are tinged with black pepper and aromatic woods in the nose of Chauvenet’s 2008 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Murgers. Very ripe, confitured fruit informs a palate strikingly viscous and rich by vintage standards, though underlain with formidable tannins, and simpler than the corresponding Argillas or Thorey. Sheer density of fruit seems to be what renders the oak here virtually unnoticeable. This strong, long-finishing effort just needs to acquire some nuance and depth, which hopefully will happen in the course of the next ten or a dozen years during which I certainly expect it to retain its integrity. Hubert Chauvenet testified to normal malos (i.e. finishing in spring – the wines’ first spring that is!). He points to the bright red of his successful 2008s as witness to the health of the corresponding fruit, whereas the 2007s had by the same stage already taken on a hint of garnet, and he tends to agree with me that many 2007s – in which, naturally he did not include his own! – were at their most exuberant and expressive while still in cask. Vigilant canopy-management and aggressive fruit-dropping have long been constants here. Chauvenet’s cellar has now been arranged to permit delivery of his fruit to the fermentation vats via conveyor and to eliminate pumping, and the refinement of tannins and clarity of fruit I witnessed in the best of these 2008s – especially considering that their author still favors high levels of new wood – can almost surely be traced to those developments. And speaking of clarity, Chauvenet pointed out that several of his 2008s are on the edge of what he deems acceptable turbidity and unfortunately resisted naturally clarifying to any greater degree. But after due consideration, he decided to bottle, as usual, without filtration, a wise move I would guess, given how well these 2008s have turned out.Imported by Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832 9083