2006 Rully Rouge Maizieres

Smoked meats, pungently smoky Lapsang tea, lichen, and scents of forest floor rise from the glass of Dureuil 2006 Rully Mazieres. These lead to a firm but surprisingly full palate, displaying ripe if tart-edged blackberry and black tea, and finishing with lip-smacking salinity and savory smoked meatiness. The tannins are less refined here than in the En Guesnes, but unobtrusive. I would expect this to be worth following for 4-6 years. Vincent Dureuil (for more about whom, see my report in issue 170) has again demonstrated his enormous talents in a vintage whose challenges were magnified in the commune of Rully by severe summer hail. Furthermore, rot was exacerbated throughout the Cote Chalonnaise, so the Dureuil's triage had to be especially severe (employing both a passive and a vibratory table); extraction very gentle (with no pigeage); and many wines racked off of their lees sooner than usual. Dureuil elected to filter some of them (a procedure he usually feels confident to avoid). A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93