Ruchottes Chambertin, Mugneret-Gibourg 2012

Tasted blind at the annual "Burgfest" tasting in Beaune. The 2012 Ruchottes Chambertin Grand Cru has a flamboyant and expressive nose, the kind the rushes out of the glass to give your sense a ginormous hug - maraschino, cranberry and orange sorbet, and with aeration that initial exuberance is replaced by almost ineffable finesse. The palate is medium-bodied with supple, ripe tannin and fine acidity, pure in the mouth with a caressing, harmonious texture towards the finish. This is a seriously fine, outstanding grand cru that has a glorious future ahead. This must sure be Mugneret-Gibourg? So it turns out. It's just a whisker away from perfection.

Nothing quite enraptured like the 2012 Ruchottes-Chambertin Grand Cru during five weeks of tasting in Burgundy. This year it is a single cuvee: the younger vines planted in 2000 granted access to the grand vin for the first time and as Marie-Christine correctly pointed out, it lends energy to this stellar wine. The nose is one that makes you take a sharp in-take of breath and leaves you scrabbling around for words. ""Wow"" will suffice. It is blessed with unbelievable delineation and mineralite, effortlessly graceful yet intense and indeed, reminiscent of Rousseau's own Ruchottes-Chambertin. The palate is refined on the entry, edgy at first with stony red berry fruit, underpinned by filigree tannins and an utterly entrancing harmonious finish that lingers long in the mouth. I would love buy all nine barrels but the wife might complain. Then I would make her taste it and she would retract that complaint. This came across as totally flawless…and it might just well be in bottle.