At the Very Top of the Slope, Above the Mazis
Ruchottes-Chambertin lies within the single commune of Gevrey-Chambertin, in the Côte-d'Or. Of all the grands crus of the commune, it is the one that climbs highest up the slope: its parcels are tiered between 290 and 310 metres in altitude, where the Chambertin, the Mazis or Latricières lie between 240 and 280 metres. The climat looks directly down on Mazis-Chambertin and adjoins the Chambertin-Clos de Bèze, from which it is separated only by the cadastral boundary — an adjacency from which the cru has drawn much of its reputation since the eighteenth century.
The appellation reads in three parts rather than two. The cahier des charges officially delimits two lieux-dits, "Ruchottes du dessus" above and "Ruchottes du bas" below. But in growers' usage three entities are distinguished: the Ruchottes-Hauts, the Ruchottes-Bas and the Clos des Ruchottes, the last isolated from the rest of the appellation by two outcropping veins of rock, one above and one below. With 3.25 hectares in production, Ruchottes is the second smallest grand cru of Gevrey, just ahead of Griotte-Chambertin.
A Film of Earth on the Bathonian Slab
This is the most radical terroir at Gevrey. The parcels occupy a moderate gradient on a substrate formed entirely of Bathonian limestones. These limestones are frost-shattered — they split in the frost — and they announce themselves in the landscape by an abundance of "murgers", those heaps of cleared stone piled along the edges of the parcels over the centuries. The place name says the same thing: "ruchottes" is related to "roche", and the local word "ruchots" designates precisely the rocks that line the path at the foot of the slope. The rock is an oolitic limestone, very stony, which leaves the vine only a shallow, poor topsoil.
The resulting soils are little evolved, generally carbonate-rich and very shallow, very stony and therefore perfectly free-draining; their texture shows a high proportion of clay and of red silts derived from the weathering of the subsoil and of the relief above. There is neither deep marl nor comfortable water reserve here: the vine works on almost nothing. This is what growers call the "character of the rock", and it explains the profile of the wine — a pale, nuanced colour, a fine and elegant body, an insistent minerality, the opposite of the generosity of the grands crus of the lower Côte.
The Combe de Lavaux and a Lengthened Growing Cycle
The regional climate is cool oceanic, tempered by continental or southern influences carried up the Rhône-Saône corridor: a moderate and regular rainfall pattern — around 750 millimetres a year — with no pronounced summer drought, for an annual mean temperature of 10.5°C. East of the Morvan massif and the Burgundian plateaus, the Côte enjoys a climatic shelter that gives it a thermal advantage and a notable rainfall deficit; the topographic situation of the parcels protects them from frost and morning fog, while ensuring an easterly exposure favourable to the rapid warming of the soil.
Two factors specific to the cru correct this picture. Altitude first: fifty metres higher than the grands crus below, and that is paid for in degrees. Then the proximity of the Combe de Lavaux, which opens just to the north and appreciably lengthens the growing cycle compared with the other grands crus — at the cost of later ripening, but to the benefit of exceptional freshness in the wines. The production rules are those of the grands crus of Gevrey: a minimum density of 9,000 vines per hectare, a maximum load of 8,000 kilos per hectare, irrigation prohibited, a minimum ripeness of 198 grams of sugar per litre of must, 14.5% maximum after enrichment, base yield 45 hl/ha and maximum yield 53 hl/ha. The cahier des charges further requires the crop to be protected from rain during transport and at reception, prohibits the use of wood chips and sets ageing running at least until 15 June of the year following the harvest — but allows release to market from 15 April, earlier than most of its neighbours.
The Style: Finesse, Minerality, Lace
Ruchottes is the counter-example to the cliché about Gevrey. Where one expects power and frame, one finds a wine of paler, more nuanced colour, of fine and elegant body, of an almost disarming delicacy. Minerality — limestone, chalk — is the most commented-upon trait, and the freshness inherited from the lengthened cycle structures the wine as much as the tannins do. The aromatic register remains that of the family: red fruits, liquorice, spice, flowers, then undergrowth with age, but on a narrower, more vertical drawing.
This finesse should not be mistaken for fragility. The best Ruchottes hold for ten to twenty years, longer in the great vintages, and gain in complexity what they never seek in volume. They are served between 13 and 16°C. At table they cope badly with dishes that are too heavy: feathered game, good poultry, mushrooms or simply roast lamb suit them better than the most powerful sauces that go with the grands crus of the lower Côte. It is a connoisseur's cru, long underestimated because it is discreet.
The Clos des Ruchottes, a Monopole Within the Grand Cru
In the middle of the appellation, a walled clos stands out: the Clos des Ruchottes, a monopole of Domaine Armand Rousseau, at Gevrey-Chambertin. Its singularity is not only legal. Two outcropping veins of rock physically separate it from the rest of the cru, one above and one below — a geological configuration that makes it a terroir unit in its own right and not a mere division of ownership. There the estate produces one of the rare cuvées of the Côte de Nuits to carry at once the name of a grand cru, the name of a clos and the mention "monopole".
The rest of the climat is shared among a small number of owners, and Ruchottes is, after Griotte, one of the hardest grands crus of Gevrey to come across: fewer than fourteen thousand bottles in an average year, to be spread across a handful of labels. That rarity, combined with a style that does not seek to impress, explains why the cru was long bought by connoisseurs rather than by collectors — a balance that the current standing of the wines of Gevrey has largely caught up with.
A Climat Cited Since the Sixteenth Century
The term "Ruchottes" appears in the archives of Gevrey in the sixteenth century, and the site seems to have been planted with vines from that period. Its reputation appears to have been established in the eighteenth century, carried by its immediate proximity to the Clos de Bèze. Jullien, in 1816, nonetheless does not cite it explicitly in his classification. It was Lavalle who, in 1855, gave it its first written rank — and applied to the climat the same division as to the Mazis: première cuvée for the upper part, deuxième cuvée for the lower.
In the early twentieth century the wines from the Ruchottes were commonly sold under the name "Ruchottes-Chambertin". The judgment of the Dijon court in 1931 recognised that usage as an appellation d'origine and fixed its geographical limits; the AOC was then recognised by the decree of 31 July 1937, and the delimited area revised by the INAO at the session of 17 and 18 May 1984. Since July 2015 the climat has been part, together with all the climats of the Burgundy vineyard, of the UNESCO World Heritage listing.