As might correctly be inferred from the existence of a Taupenot family 2008 Mazoyeres-Chambertin – from a large parcel planted in 1959 – their Charmes is all from the true Charmes rather than any of it being from Mazoyeres. Surprisingly at odds with the character of that Charmes, this Mazoyeres displays a very gamey, almost acridly smoky nose – certainly in part a function of reduction, but not one I could shake-off. Medicinal herbs strike a more typical Morey-side note and the sense of meatiness is cleaner on the palate, mingling with herbal concentrate and bitter-edged dark berries and tinged with black pepper, all impressively long-lasting. While anything but winsome, this certainly merits revisiting, and its abundant but fine-grained tannin – not to mention its overall reductive cast – encourage the belief that it will hold up robustly for at least a decade.
Romain Taupenot is clearly taking important steps to build on his family’s experience and do justice to their extensive list of appellations in parcels spread out along the Cote d’Or (and in both Pinot and Chardonnay). My tastings of wines from the last three vintages turned up some fine and above all highly distinctive bottlings which, if I were to guess, will probably please some pinotphiles more than my scores might suggest, and please the rest less! Taupenot – who prefers closed fermentors in order, he claims, to prevent influence of the yeasts in one batch on this in another – opined that his raw material in 2008 permitted sparing punch-downs in the early stage of fermentation, whereas he did not trust his 2007 fruit to respond well to as aggressive a regimen of extraction. “You had to be careful not to do too-short maceration in 2008” though, he maintains, “because whereas usually the extraction of tannin in the presence of alcohol is steady, in 2008 the tannin was not extracted until very late.” The 2008s here had been bottled a month before my February visit, all with light filtration, because, Taupenot says, “the levels of turbidity I measured were too high for me to omit filtration, whereas in 2007 I bottled some of the wines without filtration.” This estate is perhaps best known for their few rows of Clos de Lambrays, on account of which that site misses being a monopole of the Domaine des Lambrays; but as I did not have time to taste the entire Taupenot-Merme range, I did not insist on sampling the less-than-barrique-sized quantity of that particular cru.
Imported by Scott Paul Wines, Carlton, OR; tel. (503) 852 7300; also and a Scott Levy Selection, Norcross, GA; tel. (770) 730-0361
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