2000 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

"There were the beginnings of rot from July onward," said Corinne Rousseau of the 2000 growing season, "but we did a lot of green harvesting and then severe selection in the vines at the time of harvest. At first we thought 2000 would be a simply fruity vintage for drinking young," she added, "but the wines have been developing more structure as they age, and it now appears that they have more backbone than years like '92 and '97." In fact, these 2000s were showing gloriously the day I sampled them, as aromatically complex as any set of 2000s I tasted in November. Rousseau describes the fruit in '99 as black cherry, while in '00 it tends toward raspberry.