The 2005 Latricieres-Chambertin displays fresh and lightly-cooked black cherry fennel and licorice in the nose. A deep meatiness and pungent spiciness unite with sweet richness of fruit on the palate leading to a staining intensity of bitter-sweet black cherry licorice meat juices and cassis in a full-throttle finish. This powerful wine is not about refinement or elegance but it is undeniably impressive and age worthy. (At 50% new wood it is on the high side for this collection but betrays no obvious oakiness. A Griotte-Chambertin was laboring too heavily under the effects of recent racking - which in the case of such an inherently mineral-dominated wine made for extreme austerity - to be fairly evaluated during my visit.) Jacques Lardiere has once again presided over a collection for the most part not intended to flatter in its youth but rather to achieve an eventual balance of fruit acidity with (in this instance frequently quite prominent) tannin. Prolonged post-fermentative extraction promoted a formidably-structured group of wines which Lardiere expressed no hurry about bottling. Certain of these - particularly from the Cote de Beaune - displayed a slightly drying finishing astringency or simply an austere lack of charm to match their concentration traits Lardiere suggested might be traceable to drought stress in those sites. A brief July rain that reached the Cote de Nuits but not the Cote de Beaune was critical he asserts and all of Jadot's vines in the northern Cote were picked before the harvest in the south commenced. (Wines from the Domaine Louis Jadot Domaine Heritiers Louis Jadot or Domaine Gagey have been identified with a letter "D" in their listings.)