2005 | Armand Rousseau | Chambertin

The 2005 Rousseau Chambertin is another monument in the cellars this year, and it too delivers profound complexity and utter purity. The bouquet is another surreal mélange of red plums, black cherries, red and black raspberries, cocoa, beautiful soil tones, vanillin oak and a haunting and pungent note of violet at the high end. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, deep and the epitome of refinement and elegance, with its big core of fruit and powerful intensity woven seamlessly into a wine that exudes weightlessness. The finish cascades across the palate, with bright acids, velvety tannins and impeccable focus and balance. Just a brilliant bottle with great tang and grip on the endless finish.

Reviews:

• Wine Advocate: Rousseau’s 2005 Chambertin – assembled from four parcels, three of them in relatively cool, well-ventilated portions of this cru – offers high-toned aromas of plum distillate, tea and marzipan, but on the palate, chalk, raw beef, dried plum, bitter-sweet black fruits and roasted fennel flavors combine for a low-registered richness. This is the creamiest, plushest, most voluminous, and perhaps in the final analysis deepest wine of this year’s Rousseau collection, with a savory meatiness, chalky minerality and a well of fruit impossible to plumb at such an early stage in what will certainly be three or more decades of testimony to the true greatness of this famous site.

• Burghound: There is still some unabsorbed wood present on the notably ripe yet brooding nose that evidences a superb range of spice elements along with fresh black currant, plum, earth and game nuances. The superbly concentrated and overtly powerful big-bodied flavors are even bigger, richer and more mineral-inflected than those of the imposingly scaled '05 Clos de Bèze (see herein) while delivering a full frontal palate assault on the hugely long finish. The Rousseau style is one of refinement and elegance and that is true even with this most masculine of burgundies yet in 2005 it would be fair to call this wine butch as it's definitely built along the lines of a 'take no prisoners' style. As one might reasonably intuit from the description, this is nowhere near ready and I would not expect it to be for at least another 15 years and 20+ would not surprise me. A monument in the making. Note that the most recent bottle displayed a very subtle but not invisible touch of brett though it is the only time that I have noticed it so my score offers the benefit of the doubt.

Producer Information

Domaine Armand Rousseau is a highly regarded and critically lauded wine producer based in the village of Gevrey-Chambertin, in the northern Côte de Nuits. Arguably iconic in status, Armand Rousseau is one of Burgundy's oldest and most revered family-run domains. It holds many grand cru plots in Gevrey-Chambertin as well as part of the much sought-after premier cru vineyard Clos Saint-Jacques.Founded at the start of the 20th Century by Gevrey native Armand Rousseau, the domaine initially owned small plots of vines throughout Gevrey-Chambertin. Over the next 100 years under both Armand Rousseau and his son Charles, who took over after the death of his father in 1959, the Domaine acquired various grand cru vineyards in Charmes-, Mazis- (labeled "Mazy" by the domaine) and Mazoyères-Chambertin, culminating in a plot in Le Chambertin itself in 1994.Today, the winery and vineyard are run by Charles' son Eric and Eric's daughter Cyrielle Rousseau.

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