Claude Dugat Charmes Chambertin Grand Cru 2005

VM95: Full red-ruby. Superripe, highly complex aromas of dark cherry, coffee, mocha and minerals, all lifted by a floral topnote that I did not find in any of Dugat's other '05s. Dense, sweet and superripe but with lovely perfume and freshness to the dark fruit flavors. A whiff of menthol and a sappy quality give lift to this 300-pound ballerina. Rather open today in the mid-palate, but surely this will shut down in the bottle soon. Finishes broad, fruity and very long, with no sign of heat.

WA93: The pure, creamy, refined Dugat 2005 Charmes Chambertin smells of cherry and black raspberry preserves along with herbal and almond extracts, stirs dark, faintly bitter notes of black chocolate and chalk dust into the pool of ripe black fruit that spreads out on the palate, and finishes with more polish, glycerin-richness, and refinement, if less savage intensity or grip than this year’s Lavaux.