Clos de Vougeot, Méo Camuzet 2008

This is aromatically quite pretty with a perfumed and floral nose of fresh and solidly nuanced crushed wild red berries that slide gracefully into precise and tension-filled middle weight flavors that offer a discreet sense of minerality on the firm and ever-so-slightly edgy finish that should round out in time as there is good underlying sap.

Medium red. Sweet cherry, spices, chocolate and earth on the rather tight nose and palate. Distinctly less open and more tannic than the Nuits Boudots, with strong peppery acidity currently keeping the fruit under wraps. This will need several years of aging. Assistant enologist Coralie Allexant agrees that the 2008s need time, but believes they will probably be best for mid-term aging.

Meo's 2008 Clos Vougeot smells of charred, roasted red meats; smoky-sweet machine oil; metal shavings; and blackberry preserves. A correspondingly dark; sweet; smoky; subtly caramelized and bitter palate impression takes on aspects of medicinal herbal concentrate and saline, savory soy as you aerate the wine in your mouth. This is plush to an extent that covers over its tannins until they emerge grippingly in a finish whose sappy, subtly oily, sweet intensity no one is likely to deem "elegant," but which is certainly impressive in its powerful way. Look for 12-15 years of high performance from bottles of this.