Winemaker Notes
Beautifully aromatic. Pure, fresh, and bright cherry, plum, and red berry fruit aromas with a hint of herb and spice. On the palate, the flavors mirror the aromas, with vibrant cherry fruit and silky tannins. It is a very supple wine with a lot of finesse and elegance.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This is superb, with everything in the right place, beginning with macerated cherry, kirsch, sandalwood and stone notes. Layers of flavors build on the palate, remaining fresh and focused through the lingering aftertaste. Great energy here. Best from 2024 through 2047.
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Decanter
Light, pale and charming, this is always the most approachable and forward of the Rousseau grand cru bottlings, almost ready to drink from barrel. It's sweet and appealing, with supple summer pudding flavours, a hint of cola and supple tannins.
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Jasper Morris
Domaine Armand Rousseau prefer to blend their enviable holdings of 0.51ha Charmes-Chambertin and 0.86ha of Mazoyères-Chambertin into one wine. It has often been the convention to suggest that this wine, in common with some of their other less well known cuvées, is noticeably less interesting in quality than the top cuvées. Having said which, trying their Charmes-Chambertin within its peer group, the Rousseau Charmes is definitely of interest. An even pale red to crimson, showing the classical Rousseau elegance on the nose. Discreet, gently nuanced, soft red berries with some discernible oak. The recipe here is for no new wood but 100% one year old barrels. Very graceful long finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Rousseau's 2017 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru is showing nicely, wafting from the glass with inviting aromas of red berries, plums and peonies mingled with hints of cedar, raw cocoa and mandarin orange. Medium to full-bodied, supple and enveloping, it's soft and charming, with melting tannins and an ample core of fruit. Generous and demonstrative, like many 2017s it has picked up a bit of richness and depth in bottle.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
This small village is home to the Grands Crus in the farthest northerly stretches of Côte de Nuits and is famous for some of the deepest and firmest Burgundian Pinot Noir.
Gevrey boasts nine Grands Crus, the best of which are arguably Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. As with all of the fragmented vineyards of Burgundy, it isn’t easy to differentiate between the two, which are situated adjacent with Clos de Bèze slightly further up the hill than Le Chambertin. Clos de Bèze has a shallower soil and if you’re really counting, may produce wines less intense but more likely to charm. Some compare Le Chambertin in both power and plentitude only to the prized Romanée-Conti Grand Cru farther south in Vosne-Romanée.
Two other Grands Crus vineyards, Mazis-Chambertin (also written Mazy-) and Latricières-Chambertin command almost as much regard as Le Chambertin and Chambertin-Clos de Bèze. The upper part of Mazy, called Les Mazis Haut is the best and Latricières-Chambertin offers an abundance of juicy fruit and a silky texture in the warmer vintages.
Other Grands Crus are Ruchottes-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazoyères-Chambertin, Griotte-Chambertin and Chapelle-Chambertin.
The most respected Pinot Noir wines from Gevrey-Chambertin are robust and powerful but at the same time, velvety and expressive: black fruit, black liquorice and chocolate come into play. After some time in the bottle, the wines are harmonious with bright and sometimes candied fruit, and aromas of musk, truffle and forest floor. These have staying power.