The 2014 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru has a fragrant bouquet, coquettish at first, then opening with wet limestone, Morello and cassis scents; it is very defined and focused though not powerful. The palate is silky smooth on the entry, beautifully poised with pure red cherries infused with orange sorbet and captivating mineralilé on the finish. This is one of the best Clos de la Roche that I have tasted from Rousseau in recent years.

Superbly scented wine showing Christmas spices, black fruit and floral notes with a silky texture and a black fruit finish. Absolutely fabulous texture.

The 2014 Clos de la Roche chez Rousseau was raised in ten percent new oak this year. The wine is stunning, offering up a great combination of complexity and purity in its bouquet of sappy red and black cherries, raw cocoa, woodsmoke, gamebird, a very classy base of soil, fresh thyme and a whisper of spicy oak. On the palate the wine is deep, pure, full-bodied and very, very transparent. The wine is absolutely loaded with fruit at the core and yet is completely soil-driven on the backend, with suave tannins, bright acids and great focus and balance on the utterly seamless and complex finish. Again, have I ever tasted a better young vintage of Clos de la Roche from the domaine? Drink between 2024-2075.

A mix of sweet, ripe cherry and berry fruit, with underlying stone and savory elements, mark this sleek, compact red. There is a vegetal aspect also, but overall, this is fresh, elegant and superlong on the finish. Best from 2021 through 2038.

This is also moderately reduced and impossible to properly assess. Otherwise there is excellent volume to the equally muscular big-bodied flavors that are richer but don't quite have the same sense of underlying tension before terminating in a palate coating and quite firmly structured finish that delivers terrific length. This is a big but seamlessly well-balanced effort that should also amply repay extended cellaring.