2011 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

I only tasted a handful of 2011s from bottle at Rousseau, but the wines I did taste were super-impressive, the Clos St. Jacques, Ruchottes and Bèze in particular. Maybe it was just the timing of my barrel tastings last fall, but right now I prefer the best 2011s to the 2012s here. In addition to these four wines, I also tasted the Cazetiers a few days later, but I found it far too reduced to properly evalute.

This was one of the most splendid sets of 2011s I tasted in Burgundy, with even the first few wines in the range here showing concentrated fruit and sweet tannins.Eric Rousseau told me that despite terrible weather between mid-July and mid-August, the fruit reached good phenolic maturity and maintained solid acidity; he began harvesting on August 31.Potential alcohol levels ranged from 11.8% to as high as 13% for some of his young-vines parcels.In fact, he added, "the 2011s are robust wines with firmer tannins than the 2010s."(I should note that Rousseau's top cuvees in 2010 are some of the most spectacular young Burgundies I've ever tasted.)All of the wines had been racked in June or July, following the end of the malolactic fermentations in April and May.Rousseau emphasized that he practices the same vinification every year "to preserve the differences between the crus and between the vintages."