2006 Clos Vougeot

Good full medium red. Complex, expressive nose offers redcurrant, plum, minerals, iron and menthol, with higher-pitched crushed violet and blackberry notes emerging with air. Lush and sweet on entry, then quite closed and youthfully medicinal in the mid-palate, despite the impression of almost decadent sweetness conveyed by the nose and a rather suave, fine-grained texture. Best today on the building spice-and-menthol finish, where the wine's sweetness becomes apparent again. This is hiding more than it's showing today.

Good deep red. Sexy aromas of musky red berries, wild cherry and coffee; aromatic if a bit reduced. Sweet, smooth and suave, if a bit youthfully compressed. Not at all a big wine but fine-grained and fresh for its high level of ripeness (this was not chaptalized). This offers lovely fruit and shows a gentle hand with the extraction. Impressive rising finish is subtle and long, with tannins quite suave.

Cedar, tobacco, roasted meats, and lightly-cooked black raspberry and cherry in the nose of Mortet's 2006 Clos Vougeot presage its performance on a quite texturally refined – indeed, almost plush – palate. This evinces a sense of extract-richness and sheer density while displaying elegance and lift. The sense of fruit sweetness here is subtle, allowing the marrow-like dimension of carnal richness to take the lead in a long, rewarding finish. I would give this a few years in bottle and count on 10-12 of excellent performance. I find the quality here noteworthy considering that this appellation has nearly always – even in 2005 – struck me as something of a step-child in that respect like Mortet's Chambolle, which incidentally was inexplicably absent from the line-up I tasted with him. Dec 2009, www.robertparker.com