2012 - Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru Ruchottes Chambertin, Frederic Esmonin

Good deep red with ruby highlights. The nose began tight and oaky but opened with air to show enticing scents of dark raspberry, cherry liqueur, violet and licorice. The richest and sweetest of this set of 2012s, showing noteworthy concentration and breadth to the captivating flavors of berries, flowers and stony minerality. Wonderfully stuffed for an Esmonin wine but with no excess weight--and not a hint of rusticity. Finishes very long and perfumed, with utterly fine-grained tannins. Showing remarkably well following the recent bottling; in fact, I may well be underrating it today.

There are five barrels of the 2012 Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru when there are usually ten from Esmonin’s 0.52-hectare parcel of vines and like the Mazis-Chambertin it sees 100% new oak. It has a potent nose that immediately and somewhat curiously reminds me of Indian spices - “Balti” to be exact (not a trait I have come across often.) The palate is medium-bodied with dense red and black fruit. It is very harmonious with fine structure, although the Mazis-Chambertin expresses more complexity and nuance. Still, this is a fine grand cru. I made a brief visit to Domaine Frederic Esmonin in Gevrey-Chambertin where I met Frederic and father Andre Esmonin, who had kindly organized a tasting in their office, where a heater allowed me to thaw out temporarily until 20 minutes later when I was back down the cellars of Frederic’s cousin Sylvie. Until 1988 the wines were sold in bulk to no less than Leroy and Louis Jadot, but over the last two decades they have quietly gone about their way producing high quality Gevrey-focused wines from their 3.60-hectare of holdings. It’s the same old story: 50% overall reduction due to poor flowering. Here, all bunches are de-stemmed and matured in oak sourced from three cooperages: CaVin, Seguin-Moreau and Radoux. The domaine has a reputation for bottling relatively early and these 2012 had been bottled end-October. My experience of mature bottles suggests that it does not compromise these wines that have an unerring ability to age and what is more, can often be found at reasonable prices. These are beautifully crafted 2012s that are composed, poised and cautiously intense. Importer: Atherton Wine Imports (www.awiwine.com) in California and Howard Ripley (UK)