2019 Domaine Faiveley, Chambertin-Clos de Beze Grand Cru

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Aromas of cassis, plums, orange oil, smoked meats, loamy soil and black truffle preface Faiveley's 2019 Chambertin-Clos de Bèze Grand Cru, a full-bodied, velvety and sumptuous wine that's elegantly textural and fleshy, with its broad-shouldered chassis of tannin cloaked in an ample core of succulent fruit. Long and complete, it's a terrific Clos de Bèze in the making. Jérôme Flous told me that Faiveley began picking on September 9, finishing by the 20th, and that yields averaged out at around 35 hectoliters per hectare in white and a little less in red. Comparing the 2019 vintage to "a more concentrated version of 2010," he admires—as I do—its vibrant fruit tones and refined tannins, finding it more elegant than 2018. The quality of the red wines chez Faiveley is old news, and for more information on this firm's evolution I direct readers to my report published in the August 2020 Week 1 issue of The Wine Advocate. It's worth underlining, however, how good the whites are these days: Flous tells me that he now includes fûts from Damy and Chassin in the white wine barrel program, and in the last few vintages, I've found the wines' new oak component better and better integrated.