This too evidenced a hint of reduction that almost immediately dissipated. Otherwise, a background touch of wood highlights an expressive and impressively nuanced nose of red berry fruit that displays a broad range of spice and earth note. At present, this is really very backward though there is very good richness to the full-bodied and quite serious flavors that possess plenty of mid-palate extract that renders the dense but fine tannins almost invisible on the moderately austere and superbly long finish. This knockout Bèze has the balance and material to effortlessly improve over the next 12 to 15 years.

Faiveley's 2008 Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru is drinking beautifully, wafting from the glass with a deep and complex bouquet of wild berries, candied peel, musk, black truffle, rose hip and rich loamy soil. On the palate, the wine is full-bodied, ample and enveloping, with melting tannins, a succulent core of sumptuously degraded fruit, ripe but racy acids and a long, intensely sapid finish. Picked in October, and only the second vintage in Faiveley's new and less extractive stylistic register, this Clos de Bèze is only 11 years old, but already it harks back to a past era of later, cooler harvests. - William Kelley