When Burgundy Calls Your Name

There's nothing better than a wine you underestimate at first whiff turning into the blockbuster you'd been hoping for before your very palate. For a variety of reasons, including a fairly single-minded application to the task of studying for the first level exam of the Court of Master Sommeliers, I haven't had much to say here, but luxuriating in the wild mushroom lushness of the Dominique Laurent 2003 Ruchottes-Chambertin, I couldn't help but write about it. Certain wines, like certain books, actually make good on their reputation, and then turn around and shock you with just how good they really are. This wine is one of them.

The nose is full of mushroom, with yellow plum and barnyard aromas woven through, but the palate has so many well-integrated notes, of hen of the wood mushrooms, blackcurrant, mace, and even a regionally perverse suggestion of tropical fruit, that the wine literally staggers the palate, without high alchohol, tannin content or aggressive fruit. It's in the finish you appreciate why the epically uneven wines of Burgundy have inspired such devotion throughout the ages. There's just a hint of wet earth and laurel leaf on the tongue, but every other nuance of flavor, from white peppper to blueberry, coats the inside of your mouth as the wine evaporates.