Mazoyères should be a Morey-St-Denis Grand Cru,' says Romain Taupenot, controversially claiming this southern corner of Gevrey-Chambertin for his own village. He's one of the few producers to make a Mazoyères as well as a Charmes-Chambertin and the former is always a little better in my view, with darker fruit flavours, more concentration, sappy acidity and notes of clove and vanilla spices.

The 2018 Mazoyrès from Romaine Taupenot is even a step up from the very, very good Charmes this year. The bouquet is deep, pure and precise, offering up scents of black cherries, sweet dark berries, roasted meats, espresso, dark soil tones, a nice touch of the vineyard’s botanicals and a discreet framing of cedar. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and exquisitely balanced, with a fine core of black fruit, excellent soil signature, ripe, buried tannins and impressive length and grip on the complex and refined finish. Fine juice.

Here too there is a discreet mentholated top note to the very ripe and more sauvage-inflected aromas of cassis, spice, warm earth and a whiff of port character. The slightly more refined and quite suave yet even more powerful big-bodied flavors culminate in robust, exceptionally firm and compact finish that is also slightly grippy though with better length. This will also need plenty of bottle age as it's present very compact and tightly wound.