The Gambal 2007 Chassagne-Montrachet Maltroie combines ripe pit fruits, red berries, and citrus with chalk, white pepper, and generally pungent suggestions of things spicy and mineral. This is well-concentrated, palpably extract-rich, yet sleek and lithe, leading to a long, penetrating, invigorating, and refreshing finish. As this opened to the air it picked up an increasing sense of vibratory energy. Gambal claims that this is by no means his only 2007 wine that can remain fresh in an open, refrigerated bottle for up to a week. Bottles of this will be worth returning to over half a dozen or more years. Like Gambal's Corton Charlemagne, there are only around 100 cases of this.
American Alex Gambal (for more of whose improbable story, readers are referred to issue 171, and for more about whose 2007 harvest, consult the introduction to this report) has established a solid reputation for his negociant firm both within France and abroad. And like so many negociants of both the bootstrapping and well-established sorts, he is seeking to benefit from every possible opportunity to access top-quality fruit or vineyards, and at the same time to purchase vineyard land I promising but less-celebrated locations. After a collection of 2006s that showed the precarious, borderline blowsy side of that vintage, it is a pleasure to report on a far more entertaining not to mention elegant crop of 2007s. Gambal was very sparing and early with batonnage, and tends to rack all of his wines out of barrel in mid-summer, bottling one portion before the next harvest, and leaving his more concentrated crus (or any that were especially late to undergo malo) in tank until February.
Various regional U.S. importers
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