| Region | |
|---|---|
| Subregion | France > Burgundy > Côte de Nuits > Chambolle-Musigny |
| Colour | Red |
| Type | Still |
The 2018 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Cras may well prove to be the highpoint of a magical portfolio chez Barthod, and it will be worth a special effort to seek out. Unwinding in the glass with scents of dark berries, raspberries, exotic spices, sweet soil tones and peonies, it's medium to full-bodied, ample and velvety, with a textural attack that segues into a deep and layered mid-palate, underpinned by bright acids and ripe tannins, before concluding with a long, perfumed and exquisitely mineral finish.
Here the nose is presently sufficiently reduced as to render an evaluation difficult. More interesting are the racy, intense and transparent middle weight flavors that brim with both minerality and dry extract where the latter helps to buffer the moderately austere, serious and strikingly long finale. I very much like the contrast between an almost delicate mid-palate and the bold, powerful and even muscular backend. Note: from a .85 ha parcel
Deep purple. Bright deep fruit with a smoky element from the stems. I like the purity of the fruit through the mid palate and while the grapes were clearly ripe, there is a leaner style to the structure of this wine. Drink from 2028.
The 2018 les Cras from Ghislaine Barthod is absolutely classic in personality this year and fully underscores just how great this terroir can be. The beautiful bouquet delivers a combination of sappy black cherries and plums, raw cocoa, gamebird, a very complex base of limestone minerality, woodsmoke and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied
and exquisitely balanced, with a superb core of fruit, excellent transparency and grip, fine-grained tannins an impressive backend mineral drive on the refined and vibrant finish. This will take plenty of time to fully blossom, but it is destined to be an absolutely brilliant rendition of les Cras when it is ready to drink. 2032-2075.
