2010 Domaine&nbsp;Armand&nbsp;Rousseau Bourgogne Blanc 

&nbsp;BY NEAL MARTIN | JANUARY 14, 2019

Every now and again, so-called unicorn
wines trot onto my Twitter or Instagram feed, compelling me to yell into my smartphone:
“It is not a bloody unicorn wine. How can it be? Unicorns don’t exist!” The
term is misapplied to bottles that are rarely seen, and true, I rarely see unicorns
– not unless I’m driving down a country lane and spot a pony with an ice-cream
cone stuck to its forehead. Unicorns only exist in fiction: in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass or in Rick
Deckard’s dreams; My Little Pony or Princess
Bubblegum’s Korean-speaking steed Lady Rainicorn in Adventure Time. All cute and lovely, but none of them exist. Ergo,
bottles declared “ULTIMATE UNICORN” in capital letters and a small armada of
exclamation marks on social media are no such things. They are more like wild
snow leopards, creatures that you have a very small chance of seeing, but that really
are prowling about somewhere.<img alt="" src="https://allgrapes.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads%2F1547485957434-bourgogne_blanc_rousseau.jpg">

Then I started thinking. Can I prove unicorns do not exist? The answer
is “no.” A unicorn might be like those weird sea creatures that marine
biologists discover pottering about in thermal vents at the bottom of ocean
trenches. Maybe we never looked in the right place. Maybe deep in the Amazon
rainforest there is a herd of unicorns that have simply evaded capture or
sighting. How does that aphorism go? Absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence.

Therefore, I revised my definition of a unicorn
wine to “one that I never knew existed until it appeared.” That brings me to
this Cellar Favorite, which doubtless piqued the interest of
Burgundy/Rousseau-lovers. Here is the backstory. November 2018, and I am at the
La Paulée in Beaune when a guest kindly pours a white burgundy. “Wow. The
Bourgogne Blanc from Rousseau. Never seen that before,” says my sagacious
neighbour. “Shame it’s corked.” I pause to digest this revelation. I kind of
know my Burgundy but never knew Rousseau made this secret white, and I’m disappointed
that this rara avis is riddled with
TCA. It’s like chancing upon a unicorn, only to find its horn has broken off,
which makes it a horse.

A few days later, I am at Domaine Rousseau
and ask Cyrielle Rousseau about the mysterious Bourgogne Blanc. She confirms
that her family produced it for a number of years from a parcel in
Gevrey-Chambertin, solely for personal consumption or to give to friends and
associates. They no longer make it. (I later learn from Steen Ohnen’s website
that it comprises Chardonnay, Aligoté and Pinot Blanc from a plot near Clos
Saint-Jacques that is now en fermage to
either Dugat or Dugat-Py.) Cyrielle says she has a couple of bottles remaining,
and since the bottle I encountered was corked, she will gladly replace it with
one of hers. Well, I’m never going to have another opportunity to drink this
wine again, and I promise to share it with friends. Before I depart, we enter a
utility room and Cyrielle hands me a bottle from an OWC, one of the few left
with a label. A month later, it is poured blind to an unsuspecting group at
Noble Rot restaurant as part of our Christmas meal. I have promised our
gathering a true unicorn wine, but perhaps because that term is so misused for
reasons already stated, their expectations are modest. When I reveal the
grower, cue the expressions of wonderment.

So what does it taste like? The 2010
Bourgogne Blanc tastes far better than I anticipated, given its modest origins.
It has a gorgeous bouquet of almond, frangipane and brioche, well defined and
with a patina of oak. It is actually quite southern Rhône in character. The
palate is medium-bodied with a fine bead of acidity, blessed with a slightly
viscous texture, and quite rich thanks to the influence of the Aligoté. Lovely
hazelnut and buttered toast appear towards the finish. No mere curiosity, this is
absolutely delicious, to the point where I feel a little crestfallen that
Rousseau no longer produces it or ever commercialised it. 91/Drinking window: 2019-2024.

So there you go. Unicorns do not exist. At
least, not until one appears in front of you.

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