Roche de Bellene Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

2008

WA (89-90)+: The Bellene 2008 Charmes-Chambertin (from the -true- Charmes) smells of creme de cassis; and resin; offers palate-staining berry concentration and imposing sweetness though also enormous underlying tannin; and finishes with formidable grip but for now not much differentiation or refinement of flavor, and certainly not much charm. This had been racked from its original new barrels to older wood the week I tasted it and thus might have been laboring under a handicap. Certainly the raw material for at least a decade of thriving seems present.