Musigny, Pascale Marchand / Marchand-Tawse 2012

(hand-destemmed virtually berry by berry and vinified with 100% uncrushed berries; not racked): Palish red, not entirely bright. Smells like a sweet wine, with captivating high-toned scents of strawberry, peach, orange and minerals. Exotic and delicate in the mouth, with highly complex, perfumed flavors of red berries, smoke, rose petal and saline minerality suggesting very gentle extraction. Finishes surprisingly sappy and energetic, with echoing soil tones and ineffable lingering perfume. I could barely tell that I had spit the wine. A compelling and singular expression of this great terroir.

An exceptionally floral nose, in particular lavender and violet, enjoys additional breadth in the form of a lovely panoply of spice nuances on the blue pinot fruit that is also trimmed in enough wood to notice. There is exceptionally good richness to the intensely mineral-driven, dense and palate coating flavors that are also sleekly muscular before terminating in an explosively long and impeccably well-balanced finish. This is sufficiently suave that it will be approachable young but also repay long-term cellaring.