2019 Santenay 1er cru Clos Rousseau, Maison Camille Giroud
Rigorous quality control is an important part of our profession, and we have been cracking on with it. We’ve gone back to the cask samples of the 2019 Burgundy wines to re-taste.
What a lovely surprise to find this 2019 Santenay 1er cru Clos Rousseau from Maison Camille Giroud showing even better than it did in cask at the beginning of December.
I stand by everything I said then: ‘a densely woven wine with perfumed, rounded strawberry fruit and smooth tannins, juicy, seductive and vibrant, and a firm stony edge to lend definition on the finish.’
And now pure pleasure: it has soft, round mouth-filling spicy fruit, vanishingly fine tannins, and it seems to have gained in length, because it’s still with you minutes later.
Maison Camille Giroud has had a long history as a négociant in Burgundy, and the current era under winemaker Carel Voorhuis has again proven its staying power. Since taking over in 2016, Carel has had to face the challenge of climate change across each vintage.
About the 2019 Vintage
‘You cannot drop your guard for an instant,’ reported Carel of coping with the new pattern of seasons. ‘in a year with enough water the hierarchy of quality from Bourgogne to grand cru is respected; in a dry year each vineyard reacts differently, more according to soil type. One vineyard may ripen much more slowly than usual, the other faster, so treatment and harvest dates have to be carefully chosen.’
Carel faced the same challenges of frost, troubled flowering and drought as others in 2019. He began picking on 24th August and finished on 14th September. Judging by his wines, he has mastered the new reality supremely well.
See the full 2019 Burgundy offer here.
