Chambertin 1990

Good full red. Distinctly more vibrant on the nose than the regular Chambertin, offering aromas of black raspberry, coffee, mocha, menthol and licorice, with subtle floral lift. Wonderfully rich and full in the mouth, but with a medicinal menthol element (from stems?) providing energy to its rather powerful dark berry and saline mineral flavors. This has a fresher fruit character and more mid-palate extract to support its tannins, which come off as smoother than those of the cuvée classique. The long vinification of this wine lasted four weeks at relatively cool temperature, said Jean-Louis Trapet, who was 25 years old at the time. As the tannins were strong at the end, he decided not to include the press wine in the final blend. "My father wondered about that," Jean-Louis told me in December. (Incidentally, I pulled my only bottle of the '89 Chambertin from ideal storage and it was corked.) (vinified just like the "regular" Chambertin; this wine was made from Trapet's northernmost parcel in Chambertin, planted in 1919, and was bottled by hand; the fruit was "more or less totally destemmed," according to Trapet, but the wine may have been vinified with 10% whole clusters, as he threw some tiny-berried clusters into the vat because he was not sure if his destemmer at the time could handle them properly)