Charmes-Chambertin “Les Mazoyères” Grand Cru Reviews

The 2021 Charmes-Chambertin les Mazoyères Grand Cru comes from 114-yearold 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.

The 2020 Charmes-Chambertin les Mazoyères Grand Cru escaped any frost and did not require sorting. Containing 100% whole bunch, it has a taut and fresh bouquet with raspberry, blackcberry and wild hedgerow aromas, a touch of pencil lead coming through with aeration. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy red fruit, good grip, a Charmes-Chambertin with firm grip on the saline finish. Maybe I am seeking a bit more "charm" although that may develop with  time

The 2015 Charmes Chambertin les Mazoyeres Grand Cru offers up notes of red and black fruit, beetroot, earth and whole cluster spice. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, rich and silky, with an expansive attack, a layered mid-palate and a long, saline finish. This is quite stylized, marked by whole cluster fermentation which seems to give it a high pH feel, but for admirers of this particular aesthetic—a perspective my score reflects—this should offer two decades of rewarding drinking.

The 2016 Charmes Chambertin les Mazoyeres Grand Cru, which is 100% whole cluster from their single parcel of century old vines, has a tightly wound, quite floral bouquet that gradually opens with aeration but remains a little laconic compared to its peers. The palate is medium-bodied with fleshy ripe red berry fruit, fine mineralité, quite dense (especially toward the second half) with touches of blood orange and spice toward the finish. This gets more interesting as it goes along! Good potential.

Reticent, brooding aromas of kirsch and dark berries. Supple but a bit youthfully brooding in the middle palate, with blackberry, black cherry and licorice flavors coming across as a bit stunted today. Can't quite match the Bonnes-Mares for inner-mouth energy or detail, but at a crop level of 25 hectoliters per hectare, this is impressively concentrated. The darker fruit character carries through on the long finish. Aeration brought increased sweetness, spice character and pliancy, suggesting that this wine will enjoy a graceful evolution in bottle. -- Stephen Tanzer

A beautifully complex nose offers up notes of red currant, blue pinot fruit, plum and plenty of pungent earth nuances that are trimmed in just enough wood to notice. The velvety yet strikingly intense flavors brim with sap that renders the mid-palate more approachable though it seems blatantly clear from the very firm and robust finish that this distinctly serious effort is going to require plenty of cellar time before it arrives at its apogee.

Healthy dark red. Superripe, liqueur-like aromas of red cherry, damp earth, tobacco and dried rose. Lush, sweet and rich but also very pure, conveying a strong impression of terroir to its powerful flavors of dark fruits, minerals, spices and Gevrey earth. Turns drier and more classic on the back end. A very dense example of Charmes-Chambertin, but then these vines are in Mazoyères. Finishes with an enticing combination of sweetness and firm minerality. — Stephen Tanzer

The 2014 Charmes-Chambertin les Mazoyères Grand Cru includes 80% whole cluster fruit this year, a high percentage due to the age of the vines planted in 1902. There is fine delineation here, precise black cherry and cranberry scents with a touch of cold granite. It is a nose that demands respect, deservedly so. The palate is medium-bodied with fine, supple black and red fruit, very pure and smooth with a graceful, marmalade-tinged finish that lingers. This should grow up to be a very seductive, comely Charmes-Chambertin with a long future ahead.

Vougeraie's 2012 Charmes-Chambertin Les Mazoyères, from 100 year-old vines, is incredibly primary and intense at this stage. A huge core of blue and black fruit, savory herbs and graphite struggle to emerge. The 2012 is broad-shouldered and structured, no

Intense and powerful, but as yet unformed, this starts with fruity layers of black cherry skin then hits a wall of tannins. Heady in its peppery scents and closed off behind those tannins, this is formidable, if difficult to read as young wine. For the cellar.

The 2009 Charmes-Chambertin Les Mazoyeres is stunningly beautiful. It presents great richness and power in its energetic fruit. The aromatics weave through the fruit with notable beauty. This is an exceptionally harmonious wine with great intensity and fabulous overall balance. These 80 year old vines are the estate’s oldest and are used to propagate a selection massale of Pinot fin. The estate used 50% whole clusters and 80% new oak. Tasted from barrel. Anticipated maturity: 2019-2039. Biodynamic farming and non-interventionalist winemaking are at the heart of the approach at Domaine de la Vougeraie. The 2009s saw roughly a 25 days of maceration (including a week of cold soak) with one punch down a day. Once in barrel racking was kept to a bare minimum. A number of wines were bottled in late 2010 and early 2011. I tasted these wines with winemaker Pierre Vincent in March 2011.

50% whole clusters. Almost surprisingly as this is often quite reserved the bright red berry fruit nose cut with kirsch, warm earth, iron and underbrush aromas is exuberantly expressive and the rich, detailed and powerful broad-scaled flavors are firm but not imposingly austere while culminating in a relatively refined and longering finish. This should be excellent in due time, which is to say 12 to 15 years hence. 2021+