2006 Morey St Denis Vieilles Vignes

A Lignier 2006 Morey-St.-Denis adds pungent herbal and resin notes to fresh red fruits; offers a sappy palate presence though less purity of fruit or textural refinement than the corresponding village Chambolle; and finishes with an attractively pungent, tangy persistence. It seems designed for enjoying over the next 3-5 years. Bright sour cherry dominated a 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin – from the Les Seuvrees – that displayed more robust but correspondingly coarser tannins than its two village level siblings. Hubert Lignier's estate – long one of Burgundy's most prestigious addresses, and now re-named to reflect the partnership with his son Laurent – remains caught up in a sad drama of familial acrimony. Kellen Lignier – the American widow of Hubert's tragically youthfully deceased son and heir-apparent Romain – bottles one share of this estate under "Domaine Lucie et Auguste Lignier," the names of her children by Romain. (I have not yet tasted any of those wines.) Hubert and Laurent receive a share of the wine vinified by Kellen Lignier's team and continue to themselves farm and vinify the fruit from another portion of the estate, including the acreage that informs Hubert Lignier's long iconic Morey 1er cru Vieilles Vignes and Clos de la Roche. Hubert and Laurent also began with the 2005 vintage purchasing and raising negociant wines, of which I have tasted only a few not yet especially distinguished examples. I was last able to taste their 2006 estate wines just prior to bottling, and the line-up of samples did not unfortunately include their Gevrey Combettes. These 2006s remind Hubert Lignier of his 2001s, and a direct comparison of the two top wines also demonstrates how impressively those 2001s have evolved. Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990