Domaine Armand Rousseau Pere et Fils Chambertin Grand Cru 2017

Revisited from bottle, the 2017 Chambertin Grand Cru is showing beautifully, soaring from the glass with expressive aromas of sweet red berry fruit, smoked meats, coniferous forest floor, mandarin orange and peonies, framed by a deft application of cedary, spicy new oak. Full-bodied, sumptuous and enveloping, its velvety attack segues into an ample core of succulent fruit, concluding with a long and resonant finish. This is likely to be both deceptively approachable young and notably long-lived, offering a broad drinking window.

Cyrielle Rousseau told me that she began picking on September 12, with yields averaging out at around 35 hectoliters per hectare, and that this is the second vintage to deliver maturities sufficiently elevated that the domaine didn't chaptalize a single cuvée. While Rousseau is never one to show all her cards, she did admit to liking 2019, saying that "they're wines that evoke emotions—more so than 2018." Deep, vibrant and concentrated, with ethereal bouquets and seamless structure, I'm inclined to think that—taken as a whole—this is in fact Rousseau's finest vintage since 2012 or even 2010, though of course the most successful cuvées in 2016 and 2015 might be cited to challenge that assertion in detail. In any case, it's a superb set of wines that will be worth tracking down even in today's overheated Burgundy market. While preparing this report, I also revisited some of the domaine's 2017s in my US office, and they showed well, too—even if the communal Gevrey-Chambertin struck me as rather more overtly oaky than I remembered it from barrel, or that one is indeed accustomed to expect at this stylistically restrained address.