Reflecting three barrels from two sources, Potel's Bellene 2008 Chambertin smells of ripe cherry, chocolate, and rose petals; offers rich fruit and a plush texture; but also incorporates tannins that convey a degree of gum-numbing -such as I encountered in other wines of this collection - to the otherwise sweetly persistent finish. This is thus another of those impressively rich Roche de Bellene 2008s that will nonetheless need to gain complexity and finesse as well as diminish in tannic abrasion if it is to outperform in bottle my present rating from barrel. But, to be sure, it is a wine that looks likely to hold together for at least a decade.
David Schildknecht - 29 June 2010