The brightly and deeply red Chauvenet-Chopin 2008 Nuits St.-Georges exudes ripe plum and cherry; mint, black pepper and cardamom; as well as musky, peony-like floral perfume, all of which collaborate in an alliance of richness and vivacity, fruit pit and salt adding piquant and mouthwateringly savory dimensions to the wine’s deliciously long finish. This ought to be worth following for the better part of a decade. Interestingly, in an effort (successful, I’d say!) to preserve the fresh fruit characteristic of the vintage yet promote depth, Chauvenet racked one part of this to tank already at the end of the summer, six months before reuniting it with the portion that had remained in barrel (half new, half once-used) and bottling. 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

The 2005 Cote de Nuits Villages – like the Bourgogne, grown around Comblanchien – offers a more tart fruit impression than that wine, with salty, resinous overtones. Lively freshness of cherry and plum, along with fruit skin tartness and saline minerality, make for an invigorating finish.