2006 Domaine Armand Rousseau Mazis-Chambertin Grand Cru

Tart cherry enjoys a prominent return engagement throughout this year's Rousseau collection, and no more so than in a 2006 Mazy–Chambertin that mingles its bright fruit with salted beef stock and an amalgam of wet stone and chalk. Smoky and cyanic cherry pit notes only heighten the sense of austerity which it must however be pointed out accompanies an admirable sense of purity, clean meatiness, and tannic refinement into a sustained finish. This looks likely to benefit from several years in bottle, but again I would be inclined to drink it within the next six or seven thereafter. Since Eric Rousseau – as mentioned in my issue 170 run-down of his methodology – does not on principle utilize a sorting table, I imagined the aftermath of hail in 2006 presenting a special challenge to his pickers and to bottled quality, but it was one he and his team clearly surmounted. Clos de Beze, Griotte-, and Chapelle-Chambertin were the worst-effected, relates Rousseau, along with numerous of his village-level parcels. Potential alcohol levels are closer to 2003's record highs than they are to those of 2005, but the finished 2006s – while hardly as successful as their immediate predecessors – do not suffer any spirituous roughness or heat, and are thus free to effectively make their relatively light, bright, and in the best instances distinctive statements. Rousseau reports – and my limited opportunities for comparison confirm – that the initially rather austere and even brittle, disjointed personalities of these wines were ameliorated in the course of elevage, and the best of them have blossomed beautifully. (I was unable to taste several top wines here after bottling, so my notes on those are based on a representative sampling and blending from cask shortly before bottling.) Importer: Frederic Wildman & Sons, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700