2021 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru Les Mazoyères La Vougeraie

An intense red, this exudes macerated cherry, strawberry, graphite and floral flavors wrapped in toasty oak. While forthcoming, this is underscored by a muscular structure, with dense tannins shoring up the fruit and savory elements on the long aftertaste.

Delicate on the attack, the notable vinosity couples with energetic pizzaz. The vivid, lifting structure pulls the layered flavors of bramble, black cherry and forest floor into a smooth finale. This is a remarkable 0.70-hectare parcel of 114-year-old vines.

A lower proportion of whole bunches this year, just cleaner fruit selected bunch by bunch. One of the darkest colours. A huge volume of fruit for the vintage on the palate, dark raspberry, almost some blacker notes, a light peppery touch, balanced, juicy and mouth-filling. A little mineral crunch too, to finish.

The spectacular old vine parcel in Mazoyères is among the treasures of Domaine de la Vougeraie; the 0.70-hectare plot was planted in 1901 and 1902. The domaine sells the wine as Charmes-Chambertin with a prominent mention of Les Mazoyères. The powerful wine has a robust, dark plum and blackberry fruit with a slightly rustic, earthy edge. The texture is firm, tannic, and impressively long on the palate. Fermented entirely as whole clusters it nonetheless shows a lovely elegance along with its manifest power.

The 2021 Charmes-Chambertin les Mazoyères Grand Cru comes from 114-year-old vines and is one of the few to contain stems this year, just 10%. It has an open-knit bouquet with red fruit, bay leaf and Earl Grey, nicely defined but certainly missing some power. The palate is clean and fresh with crunchy red fruit, slightly ferrous with a bit of dryness towards the finish. But there is a sense of complexity here, and I find this Charmes-Chambertin has plenty of character and sapidity.

(8% whole clusters). An elegant and really quite pretty nose is comprised mostly by the essence of wild red cherries, currant and just turned earth. There is both excellent volume and richness to the sappy and seductive textured flavors where the suppleness of the mid-palate contrasts somewhat with the slightly lean if persistent finale. Here too my projected range offers the benefit of the doubt that this will flesh out in time.