The VAULT

wines

Good full red. Flamboyant, soil-inflected nose offers raspberry, minerals and iodine, with exotic suggestions of white flowers and apricot. Then lush, silky and utterly seamless, combining an exotic perfume with great inner-mouth energy. The wonderfully subtle, kaleidoscopic finish throws off scents of raspberry, minerals, flowers and minerals and goes on and on.Vinous Media | 95 VMStill very young, this is showing the proper staying power of a powerful wine. The structure is complex and dense, the plum and cranberry fruits are wrapped in tannins and hints of wood. The wine powers through the palate, promising long-term aging. A great success for the vintage.Wine Enthusiast | 95 WERose petal, fennel, licorice, raspberry and dark cherry, and decadent gaminess in the nose of Bouchard’s 2007 Chambertin Clos de Beze lead into a correspondingly complex palate that combines a silken texture with bright, penetrating fruit of a sort rare in 2007. Persistently alluring rose and peony perfume lends persistent allure as this finishes with delightful and profound interaction of fruit, mineral, floral, and animal elements. It should be worth following for at least 12-15 years.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 93 RPAs it usually does, this offers another level of aromatic complexity with a highly spiced nose trimmed in a subtle touch of wood that does not interfere with the overall transparency of either the nose or the palate as this is pure, classy and refined. Moreover, the tannins are also more refined, which is unusual, and this completely stains the palate on the hugely long finish. A balanced, stylish and beguiling Bèze that is built to age, and improve, for up to two decades.Burghound | 93-95 BH

Full, deep red. Sexy scents of black raspberry, licorice, violet and minerals, plus torrefaction notes of espresso and mocha. More tightly wound on the palate than the young 2012; less horizontal and broad at this stage but wonderfully thick, fine-grained, savory and precise, with its multidimensional flavors of dark fruits, spices, minerals and flowers given an added element of complexity by savory soil tones. Manages to be both velvety and light on its feet, and ultimately suppler than the ’12. This exceptional young grand cru finishes with utterly mellow, perfect integrated tannins, explosive rising length and penetrating salty minerality. In short, a great expression of soil and a classic example of its vintage. (13.7% alcohol; 3.34 pH; 20 h/h)Vinous Media | 96 VMThere is just enough wood to be visible but it should be absorbed in short order. Interestingly, the aromatic profile is relatively similar to that of the Griotte, though this has significantly more depth and concentration to the full-bodied, powerful and explosive flavors that benefit greatly from the exceptional depth of material before culminating in a massively long and impeccably well-balanced finish. Sometimes the Roty Charmes displays its wood for years but the 2010 version appears as though it will eat it sooner than usual. In short, this is a stunner of a wine that clearly outclasses its two grands crus stable mates so if you can find it buy it.Burghound | 95 BH

A heady, exotic Burgundy, the 2012 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St. Jacques is remarkably vivid for such a big wine, with freakish levels of concentration that are beautifully balanced by insistent veins of underlying minerality. Layers of pure Pinot fruit build through the mid-palate and finish as this voluptuous, racy wine shows off its fabulous pedigree. It simpy doesn't get too much better than this.Vinous Media | 97 VM(Gevrey-Chambertin “Clos St. Jacques”- Domaine Armand Rousseau) The 2012 Clos St. Jacques chez Rousseau is another simply brilliant wine, and I was starting to get a bit worried, as I was already beginning to run out of numbers and I still had the Clos de Bèze and Chambertin to go! In any case, the 2012 Clos St. Jacques is a stellar example of the vintage, wafting from the glass in a stunning and very flamboyant nose of red plums, red and black cherries, cocoa, hints of the grilled meats to come, a brilliantly complex base of soil tones, exotic spices and vanillin oak. I think this wine was raised in sixty percent new wood this year, but the depth of fruit has positively eaten up the impression of new oak, and if you told me it was raised in twenty percent new oak, I would think that it was probably just about right! On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and stunningly suave on the attack, with a great core of sappy fruit, a very refined sense of soil, fine-grained tannins, outstanding focus and grip and a very, very long, unrepentantly elegant and velvety finish. The synthesis here of soil and gloriously sappy fruit is remarkable. (Drink between 2022-2060).John Gilman | 96 JG(Domaine Armand Rousseau Père et Fils Gevrey-Chambertin "Clos St. Jacques" 1er Cru Red) There is a deft touch of wood to the reluctant but ultra-elegant essence of red pinot fruit, floral elements and wet stone scents. This is splendidly well-detailed with a terrific sense of underlying tension adding energy to the medium weight flavors that brim with a fine minerality before culminating in a balanced and stunningly long finish. This ageworthy effort is the most refined wine among these four 2012s and dances across the palate. In a word, dazzling. (Drink starting 2027).Burghound | 95 BHTasted blind at the annual 'Burgfest' tasting in Beaune. The 2012 Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Saint Jacques from Armand Rousseau has the most sensual nose of the quintet, perhaps the ripest with maraschino cherries, fresh strawberry and fruits pastilles. This is certainly the most generous nose. The palate is medium-bodied with supple ripe tannin, more modern in style but very pure and harmonious. The oak is a little more pronounced on the finish but that will be subsumed in time, and then it will be a Clos Saint Jacques that you'll wish you could drink every day.Robert Parker Neal Martin | 95 RP-NM

The 2012 vintage is not one that I reach for right now, as this low yield and truly stunning vintage has been in deep hibernation for a few years already. This was true of the 2012 Chapelle-Chambertin from Cécile Tremblay, and yet its enormous potential was also manifest when she generously opened a bottle at the domaine in March. The very youthful bouquet is bottomless and loaded with sweet fruit and great soil signature, delivering a constellation of black cherries, sweet dark berries, gamebird, dark soil tones and smoky new oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied and very sappy at the core, with great focus, length and grip, ripe, buried tannins and a very, very long, still quite primary finish. This has the same potential for elegance and perfume as the stellar 2014 Chapelle here, but even more depth and length! A brilliant, brilliant young wine, but do not touch it for at least another decade! (Drink between 2029 - 2100)John Gilman | 97 JGTremblay’s daughter was born on July 28, and her new winery building was completed on September 10, in time for the beginning of harvest on September 15—so this was a busy year for Cécile. The 2012 Chapelle-Chambertin Grand Cru is developing beautifully, having shed a touch of youthful reduction it exhibited on release to reveal, today, a youthful bouquet of wild berries, rose hips, exotic spices, musk and vine smoke. Full-bodied, velvety and textural, it’s a deep, powerful wine with lively acids and beautifully refined tannins. One of the least-evolved wines from this period of Tremblay’s career, the 2012 will continue to reward patience.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 94+ RP(95% vendange entier): Medium red. Knockout deep nose combines small red fruits, sexy vanillin oak, a distinctly wild animal quality, soil tones and a note of menthol. Powerful but youthfully closed, with intense raspberry and strawberry fruit flavors complicated by sweet spices and a rocky quality. The explosive, ripely tannic finish builds and mounts. This soil-driven grand cru will need patience.Vinous Media | 93+ VMAn interesting and slightly atypical nose displays notes of wild strawberry, lavender, warm earth, spice and a hint of underbrush. The wonderfully precise and almost painfully intense big-bodied yet elegant flavors possess both plenty of minerality and underlying tension before culminating in a balanced, gorgeously complex and seriously long finish. This is distinctly austere at present but the ripeness is such that it shouldn’t last.Burghound | 92-95 BH

Tasted blind at the Burgfest tasting in Beaune, the 2013 Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru was showing some quality new oak on the nose that still needs to be subsumed. It is tightly coiled but it just needs time because there is freshness, definition and beguiling complexity locked in here. The palate is medium-bodied with supple tannin, very well judged acidity and clever use of new oak lending body without compromising terroir expression. The finish feels focused and satisfying and the texture leaves you totally seduced. Class, class, class. Tasted September 2016.Robert Parker Wine Advocate | 96 RPIt has been six years since I last tasted the 2013 Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru, when I wrote "Class. Class. Class." I have no need to alter that assessment. With fragrant raspberry, wild strawberry, crushed limestone and flint on the nose, this has a transparency that is a wonder to behold. The palate is beautifully balanced, poised with a fine line of acidity, full of tension with vivid red fruit on the finish that belies the structure underneath. Magnificent. Tasted at a private dinner in Beaune.Vinous Media | 96 VMThe 2013 Ruchottes-Chambertin from Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg is another great example of the vintage. The bouquet delivers and outstanding aromatic constellation of sweet dark berries, cassis, grilled meats, complex soil tones, espresso, woodsmoke, mustard seed and nutty new wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very suave and refined on the palate, with a rock solid core, fine-grained tannins and superb backend energy on the very long and utterly classic finish. Great juice. (Drink between 2023 - 2075)John Gilman | 95+ JGA markedly ripe nose presents notes of cassis, plum liqueur, earth, spice and a hint of the sauvage. As it virtually always is this is notably bigger, richer and more powerful than the Feusselottes with its sleekly muscular and equally mineral-driven flavors that possess excellent mid-palate concentration along with impressive depth and length on the youthfully austere finale. This is really lovely juice but note that patience will definitely be required.Burghound | 93 BH

The 2014 Maison Drouhin Griotte-Chambertin had also been racked a week prior to my tasting it, but this too was showing very well indeed and did not seem overly upset about having been moved out of cask so recently. The wine includes fifteen percent whole clusters this year and offers up a gorgeous and very soil-driven bouquet of strawberries, cherries, grilled meat, coffee, a beautifully transparent base of soil, gentle spices and cedary wood. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied, complex and loaded with sappy red fruit at the core, with excellent transparency, fine-grained tannins and outstanding length and grip on the impeccably balanced finish. (Drink between 2025 - 2075)John Gilman | 95 JG