2006 Vosne Romanee

Rouget's 2006 Vosne-Romanee – assembled from five diverse parcels – boasts a palate-staining, ripe but not at all superficially sweet concentration of blackberry and cassis, tinged with bittersweet floral perfume, soy and suggestions of peat and roasted meat. This palpably dense but fine-grained Vosne finishes with emphatic intensity and vivacity as well as striking clarity of fruit to nuances of floral, mineral, and animal nature. Expect it to be worth waiting a few years for an enjoying at least through 2016. Emmanuel Rouget was very pleased with the "unusually long evolution" of his youthful 2006s – which I last tasted on the eve of bottling – rendered possible not just by the frigid temperature of his relatively shallow cellars, he explained, but also by what for this vintage are impressively low pHs. Even after slight chaptalization, he says the present collection scarcely exceeds 13% alcohol. These factors no doubt help account for the balance of ripe flavors and textural polish with cut and vivacity that the 2006s here display, rendering them – as Rouget puts it – "more precise, fresh, and elegant" than his 2005s, in which respect they remind him of his 1996s. "If you compare them directly today, my 2005s almost taste heavy by comparison with these 2006s," he notes. Moreover, my own impression is that the current crop of wines has proven more resistant to the same levels of new oak – 50-100% – as were used on his 2005s (whereas the 2004s received nada). "I think that impression is on account of the acidity," of the 2006s, opines Rouget, adding "for me the acidity of Pinot is more important than the alcohol. Importer: Martine’s Wines, Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-0400