2006 Nuits St Georges Albuca

An amazingly dark purple color catches the eye in the glass of Tremblay 2006 Nuits-St.-Georges, from which rises scents of resin, peat, and damp forest floor. This is almost explosively concentrated if somewhat unruly on the palate, with tart plum and rhubarb allied to palate-staining, sweetly smoky, cedar, toasted pecan, and blonde Virginia tobacco-like pungency. There is a wealth of tannin buried here – and I suspect the wine might seize up for a time – but right now richness overrides structure in a long, sappy, tangy, and smoky finish. An amazing accomplishment in village-level red Burgundy, I would not hesitate to plan on following it for 6-8 years. There were only three barrels, one of which was new. "Given the amount and character of tannin in 2006," reports Cecile Tremblay, "a lot of changes had to be made" in handling to guarantee extraction of pure fruit and the encouragement of depth and textural polish, notably the gentleness of both pressing and maceration. (I had to offer Tremblay – and now do my readers – an apology for stating in my detailed report in issue 171 that she and Pascal Roblet were married. That was never the case – although I am not the only person to have made this mistake – and in any event the two have now gone their separate wine ways. Tremblay crushed her most recent vintage at cellars in her home town of Vosne-Romanee.) Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA; tel. (610) 486-0800