2013 Chambolle-Musigny Village

"A vintage of freshness--elegant and balanced," said Ghislaine Barthod about her 2013s, a few of which were just returning to form after having been racked about two weeks before my early November visit (a couple had been racked for a second time owing to reduction). "The 2013s are only now revealing themselves," she added, a comment echoed by numerous winemakers in Burgundy who found their wines very hard to get a handle on for their first 10 or 12 months in barrel. Like most growers, Barthod exercised a light hand with chaptalization ("we needed to respect the style of the vintage"), harvesting fruit with potential alcohol mostly between 12% and 12.5% and then bumping the wines up to 12.5% to 13%. "The 2012s are more powerful wines, while the 2013s are more for purists of pinot," she summarized.