2021 Mazy-Chambertin Grand Cru

Rouss eau‘clock is one of my most eagerly anticipated rendezvous during my Burgundy marathon, and I have no need to explain why. Having bonded with their two dogs, who attempted to lick me to death through the main gate, winemaker Cyrielle de Rousseau escorts me down to their barrel cellar to taste through their 2021s. “It was a horrible and complicated season,” she admits. “Everything that could happen, did happen. Hail, oïdium…for us, the most impact was botrytis in September. Everything was fine until a week before picking. We started on 22 September, and there was a lot of sorting to do. This is done almost entirely in the vineyard. So the harvest took longer than usual, around ten days. The fermentation was normal, and we will bottle around March or April.” Asking about specific loss in crop, Cyrielle Rousseau gives me a philosophical answer. “I don’t see it as a loss of volume. It’s a ‘full crop’ of what we have in our cellar.” I suppose that she looks at the 2021 as a glass half full instead of half empty.

These 2021s epitomise “transparent” Pinot Noir. It neatly folds into Rousseau’s signature style. Highlights include a wonderful Charmes-Chambertin and an enthralling Chambertin Clos-de-Bèze that defies the appalling growing season. It has the hubris to outshine a slightly introspective Chambertin, which is akin to a gifted student vexing over adulthood. Cyrielle Rousseau pointed out that the Chambertin comes from a colder terroir, closer to the forest, that is exposed to cool air descending the Combe de Lavaux and its more clayey soils, disadvantaging this cru in a season marked by lower temperatures (and vice versa).