2006 Gevrey Chambertin Vieilles Vignes

What a treat to come across a mature wine from this small domaine. Mid ruby. Slightly funky nose but great honesty and vitality on the palate. Redcurrants, red fruits, good acidity but nothing out of place. Quite a dry finish suggests this should definitely be drunk with good savoury food. Excellent juiciness and sincerity. Long. (JR)

Scents of fresh blackberry, cassis, linseed, and roasted red meats in the nose of Bachelet's 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin Vieilles Vignes lead to an oily-textured, sappy and brightly fresh-fruited palate that manages to convey vivacity and invigorating without excessive tartness or any hardness. Nor does the wine lack for a sense of grounding in ample underlying extract. A promising dynamic of fruit, stony minerality, and carnal notes is already emerging in the lip-smacking finish, and a faint hint of tannic perturbation is, I suspect, going to diminish with distance from bottling. Denis Bachelet performed a rigorous, late green harvest as a means of "pre-selection," recognizing that thereafter more than enough work would still remain to be done at harvest and on the sorting table. (Green harvest in July or the first half of August in retrospect risked dangerous pressure on berries when the vines began to pump rainwater.) Bachelet guided his 2006s – as is ever his wont – through late malos (keeping them in an extremely frigid cellar), and in other respects, too, he says, the vinificatory regimen was "the same as usual. Nature is what makes the difference." After light chaptalization, they have around 13% finished alcohol. "For me," he says, "this is a very classic vintage, like 2001 but with a bit more acidity, whereas the 2007s are more fruity and feminine." It follows that Bachelet considers his 2006s – especially the (predictably ripest and earliest-harvested) Charmes-Chambertin – demanding of time in cellar. A Becky Wasserman Selection, Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70

Good deep red. Enticing aromas of black cherry, currant, licorice and smoky underbrush. Sweet and juicy but tight, with firm flavors of black cherry, spices and fresh herbs. Finishes with toothcoating tannins that avoid coming off as dry. But less pliant than the 2007. (The Bourgogne is a chocolatey-ripe outperformer in its category.)