Mint, banana, cinnamon, oak, smoke, pear, brioche and citrus bouquet. Superb freshness, with vibrant fruit, this has swagger and power. Complex, supple and smooth with mouthwatering acidity.

Ripe peach, vanilla, and brown spices on the nose of Gambal's 2007 Chassagne-Montrachet Clos St.-Jean follow onto a creamy palate whose slight sense of caramelization - I have come to accept - is (like the wine's spiciness) at least as much a function of this site as of any influence from its roughly one-quarter new wood. As so often in this vintage, a wave of bright citrus lends refreshment and liveliness, without fighting the richer side of the wine's personality. Hints of peach kernel and vanilla bean bitterness marry with the spice and resinous hint of wood in a finish of both luscious and pungent persistence. I suspect this will be worth following for 4-5 years. American Alex Gambal (for more of whose improbable story, readers are referred to issue 171, and for more about whose 2007 harvest, consult the introduction to this report) has established a solid reputation for his negociant firm both within France and abroad. And like so many negociants of both the bootstrapping and well-established sorts, he is seeking to benefit from every possible opportunity to access top-quality fruit or vineyards, and at the same time to purchase vineyard land I promising but less-celebrated locations. After a collection of 2006s that showed the precarious, borderline blowsy side of that vintage, it is a pleasure to report on a far more entertaining not to mention elegant crop of 2007s. Gambal was very sparing and early with batonnage, and tends to rack all of his wines out of barrel in mid-summer, bottling one portion before the next harvest, and leaving his more concentrated crus (or any that were especially late to undergo malo) in tank until February. Various regional U.S. importers