Like the Clos St. Jacques, the 2005 Clos de Bèze offers up amazing youthful complexity, but in this case that same complexity is tied to a wine that is emphatically young and almost primary. I can only imagine how complex this wine will become as it has a chance to grow with bottle age. The celestial bouquet erupts from the glass in a blaze of black cherries, plums, candied strawberries, cocoa, citrus peel, exotic spices, a kaleidoscope of minerality, vanillin oak and a rose garden in the upper register. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, deep and utterly complete, with a bottomless core, stunning intensity of flavor without undue weight, zesty acidity, fine-grained tannins, and an exquisitely long, complex and palate-staining finish. Like bottled spring in Paris. - JG
JG98November 2006