What I'm Drinking...

1999 Rousseau Ruchottes Chambertin Clos de Ruchottes

Publish Date: 28 Mar 2011

Luscious and mouthfilling, yet fine and elegant - how can this be? Fruit that pushes the envelope of ripeness, but never crosses the line. What dark, succulent fruits do you want? They are all there, if you taste - nay, drink - the wine over almost two hours. Sure, the violets, spice and assorted forest/forest floor characters aren't obvious yet, but this is a young wine (protected by a prodigiously long cork), still passing out of its precocious youth when 11 years old. I've kept my hand off the '99s - especially DRC - because they have so much still to give, but increasing recognition of my mortality means it is better that I start to drink my '95s, '96s and '99s before they have entered the plateau of perfection after my ashes have been scattered on House Block chardonnay, just underneath my house. At least I'm not engaged in a Nabokov-Lolita play with the '09s. My decision to drink this wine was triggered by a red wine saturated osso bucco and yet another grey, cold day in the Yarra Valley, on March 26, vintage barely one-third through and an uninspiring weather forecast for the next seven days. Another sip of the wine, and the palate and aftertaste are endless. Perhaps the sun will shine on Coldstream Hills, after all. 

Authored by: James Halliday

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