The 2013 Chambertin Clos de Béze is a bit light in texture and body in this vintage, with attractive, floral aromatics and sculpted fruit but less of the intensity and power that is typical of this site. It will be interesting to see if the 2013 fleshes out a bit, or if perhaps I caught it on an off day.

The 2013 Chambertin Clos de Bèze Grand Cru has a broody, slightly gravelly bouquet that is well defined, but you might describe it has a “broody bugger” (non-technical term). The palate is piquant on the entry with a fine line of acidity. This is very harmonious and more feminine than the nose suggests: silky in the mouth with strawberry confit on the persistent finish that leaves you grinning.Bruno Clair, attired in his regulation red lumberjack jacket, was quietly pleased about his 2013s when I visited his winery in Marsannay. “We did a lot of work in the vineyard during September, removing damaged or rot affected berries,” he told me. “We picked on 3 and 4 October for the white and the rose because the colors were changing quickly, so we had to harvest. Then we commenced the picking for the reds on 6 October. The malolactic fermentation finished by the end of July and the wines were much more expressive afterwards.” When I asked Bruno if it brought to mind any other vintages, he compared the 2013s to the 1991, a vintage that was reportedly difficult to taste in its infancy but is now rightly regarded as a great Burgundy vintage. This domaine has really upped the ante in recent years. Much like Rossignol-Trapet, to take just one example, they produced good, from time to time excellent, wines a decade ago. Now their wines are imbued with an additional level of precision and that rustic edge has been replaced by refinement without compromising on character. Take the Bonnes-Mares for example. It’s a vineyard tricky to get right, balancing the juvenile ebullience of the fruit with a sense of complexity and authority befitting a grand cru. Bruno’s 2013 is a brilliant example, one of the finest that I encountered during my tastings. Welcome to Bruno Clair's purple patch...long may it continue.