Gevrey Chambertin is the most northerly great red wine appellation in the strip of the Cote de Nuits, Burgundy from which some of the world’s best wines originate. Like most of Burgundy it’s an unassuming place; Gevrey lies sleepily at the foot of a road which then sharply ascends the dramatic Cote d’Or escarpment where no good will come of planting vines. Down within the commune, however, there’s an embarrassment of riches grown from the steep slopes of Clos St Jacques, to the flatter terrain of other famous Premier Crus like Combottes, allowing for a variety of styles from structured and tannic to rich and intensely fragrant. There are nine Grand Cru vineyards in Gevrey, the daddy of them all being simply, ‘Chambertin’.

Domaine Maume is run by Bertrand Maume who is part of the enology department of the University of Dijon but there’s nothing academic about the character of this almost exaggeratedly luscious and lively wine.

After the lauded 2005 Burgundies, which are turning out to have a secretive violet allure not yet ready to reveal their full character beyond village level, 2006 was full of simple charm from the outset. Some have been a bit of a letdown after the initial fruit glow has settled but this assemblage from different climates owned by Maume isn’t ready to let time tame its vigour.

It doesn’t look like a blockbuster: light brick in the glass, it merges into a transparent rim but you can whiff the unusually intense fragrance before even lifting the glass. Powerful red fruits with strawberry tart, pollens and a backdrop of violet leap out like colours with the saturation dialled up. Fruits emerge in the mouth with jammy currants, sweet rhubarb and a slightly saline finish framed by vanilla from the oak. So, arguably a little blowsy at present but far from one-dimensional.

Now to our musical pairing. It’s not a box-ticking exercise (Feminine? Check. Vigorous? Check. Layered and Complex? Whatever.) What we’re after is the fundamental character that defines the wine’s uniqueness (and on this note, it’s good to kick-off with Burgundy, surely the antithesis of squeezed-through-a-tube focus-tested product manufacture) and an album that tells that same story from a musical perspective.

Much as I would have loved to pull out some obscure psychedelic gem for the debut pairing of Drinkin’ Music, the perfect fit is very likely already resident in your music collection. An album whose reputation has probably suffered from its justifiable ubiquity. But popularity doesn’t make it any less a of a masterpiece.

Van Morrison  – “Moondance” (Warners, 1970)

“Astral Weeks” which came out a couple of years earlier in 1968 is the Grand Cru, the Chambertin: an album that’s never the same experience twice, that keeps you coming back to marvel at the hypnotic fluency of Morrison’s expression. “Moondance” is our 1er Cru Gevrey – it hints at the complexity and power in its bloodline but wraps everything up in an altogether more accessible form.

Give the album long enough and it finally reveals its inner sanctum, “Into The Mystic”, the song that most explicitly references the visions conjured on “Astral Weeks”; that Celtic gypsy soul and wide-eyed wonderment in the presence of nature that’s so explicit in the previous album yet steering the undercurrent of raw passion behind the pristine structures of this one.

It’s those glimpses of greatness, flashes of a complexity often inaccessible to the initiate but channelled through a more hospitable façade that define this wine and this record. Just listen to Van soar righteously into the final chorus of the otherwise pleasantly MOR “These Dreams Of You”; these are the cookie crumbs that get us all hooked on the hard stuff in the end.

Think twice before developing a Chambertin habit though. “Astral Weeks” is currently available on Amazon for £4.69; Domaine Maume’s 2006 Mazis-Chambertin is selling for between £500 and £700 for a case of 12 bottles. A bottle of the Gevrey 1er Cru discussed above will set you back about £30. And you already have “Moondance”, right?