The Prieur 2005 Musigny delivers a gorgeous bouquet of diverse, sweet flowers, cassis laced, with lemon zest, spices and humus. Sleek, polished and silken-textured in the mouth, this wine offers superb concentration of super-ripe fruit with marrowy meatiness, but with more refinement and youthful class than the Chambertin, not to mention a buoyancy and dynamism and a sheer infectious juiciness in its finish, loaded with bitter-sweet florals. Nearly all bottlings from this negociant – on an upward path since the influx of Rodet capital in the early ‘90s – in fact originate in the Domaine Jacques Prieur. Martin Prieur and his team have striven to capture purity of fruit through gentle extraction, although for my taste I found some of their 2005s overly confectionary due to the influence of toasty new wood on already very sweetly ripe raw material. After malo – which was generally quite late here this year – the wines were sulfured but not yet racked. Importer: Frederick Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700.

Bright ruby-red. Very ripe, pure aromas of black raspberry, cocoa powder, flowers, spices and minerals. At once thick and lively on entry, then wonderfully sweet and harmonious in the middle palate, with a spherical shape and seamless texture I have rarely noted in the past from this estate's red wines. There's an almost liqueur-like warmth to this suave, silky wine but underlying minerality keeps it fresh and delineated. Finishes with superb finesse of tannins and explosive fruit and minerality. This may be a hotter site than Prieur's Echezeaux, but this cuvee too is a major success in 2005.