An earthy serious and restrained nose still manages to be elegant pure and layered as it offers up a mix of red fruits spice elements and earth with a background touch of the sauvage that complements the solidly well detailed supple and silky middle weight plus flavors that are not as complex as those of the Bressandes but certainly delicious and really quite stylish.

High-toned maraschino cherry and red raspberry reserves and distillate scent the Drouhin 2008 Charmes-Chambertin (from the "true" Charmes and not yet bottled when I tasted it). A combination of sweetness of red fruit preserves and rhubarb-like tartness is invigorating rather than at all inharmonious; and cherry pit bitterness pungent brown spices and chalk add contrast in the finish. This is not the grandest of Charmes bottlings but it delivers a lot of immediate stimulation; is tough to beat for sheer sweetness of fruit; and should keep well and perhaps gain complexity for the better part of a decade. - David Schildknecht