⭐️94/100⭐️ Domaine Armand Rousseau Pére & Fils “Clos des

⭐️94/100⭐️ Domaine Armand Rousseau Pére & Fils “Clos des Ruchottes”, Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru, 1997 📍Gevrey-Chambertin, Côte-d’Or, Bourgogne, France🇫🇷 🍇100% Pinot Noir ⚡️13 % (I think…) Tasted: September 2020 The Grands Crus of Gevrey-Chambertin are iconic Pinot Noir wines; powerful, virile, complex and intense. And often quite age worthy. 
Ruchottes-Chambertin is a small vineyard, 3 hectares, covering the land just above Mazis-Chambertin, and like it’s fellow Grand Cru, it’s decided into an upper (dessus) and a lower (bas) climates. Even though Ruchottes isn’t as prestigious as its big brothers (Le Chambertin and Clos de Beze), it’s super interesting and very well-known for its terroir (actually, Ruchottes refers to the small rocks on the soil).

The most famous wine from this slope is Armand Rousseaus’s Clos des Ruchottes, which is a monopole parcel (“the third climate”) located inside the dessus section. Domaine Armand Rousseau was established in the beginning of the 20th century, and today it’s one of the most well reputed wineries of Gevrey-Chambertin. At the beginning, they sold most of their harvest to other negotiants, but after the acquisition of some major and prestigious parcels from 1919-1921, they reorganized the cellers in favor of better production facilities with further additions in the 80’s. The winemaking is very traditional: Organic harvesting, 10% whole cluster fermentation and, in this case, maturation in 30% new Allier oak for 20 months. The color was ruby with rusty light brown edges - looking superb for a 23 year old PN. To starte with, the great bouquet showed over ripe berries with lots of tertiary aromas like olive paste, moss and forest floor, black tea, spicy vanilla, hibiscus, gravel and chanterelles.
Then, funny enough, after and hour or so, the bouquet changed quite dramatically, developing scents of fresh coffee, vanilla and biscuits - almost like a tiramisu with red berry compote on the side.
The palate was powerful and soft with dusty tannins. Nice acidity and vibrance considering the age. Wild strawberry, cranberry, pepper, black tea, dried herbs and white truffle with a long, mineral finish.