1996 Gevrey Chambertin Clos St Jacques

The 1996 Gevrey-Chambertin Clos St.-Jacques 1er Cru is a vintage that I have tasted twice before. This bottle is perfectly correct, although it curtails my previous enthusiasm. It still possesses a drop-dead gorgeous bouquet with exquisite delineation and similar aromatics as before: dark cherries, sous-bois and bay leaf, quite gutsy in style. The palate, like many 1996s, is structured with moderate depth. It is certainly nowhere near the ethereal 1996 Chambertin from Rousseau even though it exudes transparency. It steps on the brakes towards the finish and does not quite deliver the density and persistence that would encourage cellaring over the long term. It is a lovely Clos St.-Jacques but juxtaposed against the 2005 I prefer the younger vintage. Tasted at the Gevrey-Chambertin lunch at China Tang in Hong Kong.

I have long considered the 1996 Gevrey-Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Saint-Jacques from Armand Rousseau to be a brilliant wine, though it is a few years since we last met. Here, it had a broody and surprisingly youthful bouquet: dark berry fruit, juniper berries, briary and sous-bois aromas. Captivating...but serious! The palate is medium-bodied with that impressive fruit concentration although it has clearly mellowed in recent years. There remains a firmness and an obduracy, yet also wondrous harmony and compose, almost effortless in nature as it gently fans out on the finish. As I said before, this has a long future. Tasted November 2016.