2005 Christophe Roumier Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru

The 2005 Ruchottes-Chambertin is from rented vines. A nose of faintly-bitter black fruits, licorice, brown spices, and smoked meat ushers in a rich though firm, fine-grained palate exposition of blackberry, blueberry, licorice, savory meatiness, and wet stone, leading to a finish of formidable length, precocious polish and refinement, and pristine clarity of infectiously bright and invigorating fresh, tart berry fruit and saline minerality. One senses that Christophe Roumier considers 2005 a high point of his career, and my visit with him was among the high points of my recent trip. He describes this as “a classic vintage lending itself to very calm, classic vinification,” which given the opportunities afforded by perfectly healthy, firm, dry, ripe fruit involved triage almost solely to remove ladybugs, and included around 25% whole clusters in the fermenters at the Premier Cru level and 50% at that of Grand Cru.