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Domaine Gérard Raphet, Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

Burgundy, France 2016 (750mL)
$145.00
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Earth
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Domaine Gérard Raphet, Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru

Our recent spate of offers from Gérard Raphet is a result of our March visit to taste the 2016s: Everyone assembled agreed that this may be the most formidable lineup of wines ever produced at this impeccable property. The only issue, as we learned, is availability—Spring frosts throughout Burgundy in 2016 decimated certain areas and affected just about everyone up and down the Côte d’Or.
Whereas today’s Grand Cru stunner was in relatively healthy supply in the 2015 vintage, this every-bit-as-impressive 2016 is more tightly allocated. Across the board, the Raphet wines showed dense concentration, supple textures, and ready accessibility, much like the ’15s before them; this Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru, meanwhile, was a standout for its ‘typicity,’ displaying for us the ultimate in Gevrey-Chambertin muscularity and soil character. This is a no-brainer cellar selection for collectors, not to mention a taste of elite-level red Burgundy at a very affordable price. We can offer up to four bottles per customer today—I’d suggest sneaking one now and laying the rest down for a 7-10 year slumber!
This is, as we’ve said many times before, the ultimate in ‘farmstead’ winemaking. Gérard Raphet, who took over the domaine from his father in 2005, manually works the vines with the help of his wife, Sylviane, and their daughter, Virginie. Theirs is the old-school lutte raisonnée, or ‘reasoned fight,’ approach—a methodology that calls for only organic treatments in the vineyards, extreme circumstances dictate otherwise. Gérard and his team use traditional cultivation methods and harvest only by hand. The grapes undergo strict sorting before fermentation with natural yeasts, and then the wines are put in French oak barrels (roughly 15% new) for between 12 to 18 months. Based in Morey-Saint-Denis, the Raphet domaine extends throughout the Côte de Nuits, with about 12 hectares in vineyards spread across Morey, Gevrey-Chambertin, and Chambolle-Musigny.

Just downslope from the “Le Chambertin” Grand Cru in the village of Gevrey-Chambertin, “Charmes” is said to have a slight northern tilt to its easterly aspect, resulting in wines that are marginally less sun-exposed (and therefore less intense) than some of its Grand Cru neighbors. Gevrey-Chambertin in general produces some of the burliest versions of Burgundy Pinot Noirs, and while this wine has a firm structure, there’s also a level of lift and refinement that reflect the conventional wisdom regarding this site. Raphet farms four separate parcels in the vineyard, and created a deeply mineral, highly evocative wine from the site in 2016.

In the glass, the 2016 Raphet Charmes-Chambertin is a deep garnet red, with heady aromas of black cherry, black raspberry, licorice, black tea, and dark, humid soil. We found the entirety of the Raphet 2016 lineup to be velvety and rich, but this one stood out for having a little firmer tannic structure and more of a savory, underbrush-y quality. It was a standout in a truly impressive and opulent lineup of reds, most of which showed lots of concentration and fairly ready approachability at this young stage in their lives. That said, I still wouldn’t “pop and pour” this extremely serious red: decant it a good hour before serving at 60-65 degrees in Burgundy stems and lose the remaining bottles in a cool, dark corner of your cellar. Re-visit them starting in about five years and you’ll be a very happy Burgophile, especially if you go the extra mile in the kitchen: My suggestion would be a cassoulet incorporating some duck confit, as in the attached recipe. A little effort is mandatory for a wine of this magnitude! Enjoy!
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Country
France
Region
Burgundy
Sub-Region
FranceCharmes-Chambertin Grand Cru
Soil
Limestone & Clay
Farming
'Lutte Raisonnée'
Blend
Pinot Noir 100%
Alcohol
13.5
OAK
Partial New French
TEMP.
60-65
Glassware
Burgundy Stems
Drinking
Now-2030
Decanting
One Hour
Pairing
Cassoulet w/ Duck Confit

France

Bourgogne

Beaujolais

Enjoying the greatest wines of Beaujolais starts, as it usually does, with the lay of the land. In Beaujolais, 10 localities have been given their own AOC (Appellation of Controlled Origin) designation. They are: Saint Amour; Juliénas; Chénas; Moulin-à Vent; Fleurie; Chiroubles; Morgon; Régnié; Côte de Brouilly; and Brouilly.

Southwestern France

Bordeaux

Bordeaux surrounds two rivers, the Dordogne and Garonne, which intersect north of the city of Bordeaux to form the Gironde Estuary, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. The region is at the 45th parallel (California’s Napa Valley is at the38th), with a mild, Atlantic-influenced climate enabling the maturation of late-ripening varieties.

Central France

Loire Valley

The Loire is France’s longest river (634 miles), originating in the southerly Cévennes Mountains, flowing north towards Paris, then curving westward and emptying into the Atlantic Ocean near Nantes. The Loire and its tributaries cover a huge swath of central France, with most of the wine appellations on an east-west stretch at47 degrees north (the same latitude as Burgundy).

Northeastern France

Alsace

Alsace, in Northeastern France, is one of the most geologically diverse wine regions in the world, with vineyards running from the foothills of theVosges Mountains down to the Rhine River Valley below.

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