2006 Bellevue (Saint Emilion)

Bright purple. Bright, ripe purple berries on the nose. Almost Italianate structure with its focus and bite on the finish. Quite dry tannins with real sap. Very drying finish though. (JR)

This is a wine that I appear to have badly misjudged when tasting out of barrel. I had the bottled 2006 Bellevue several times, and it was consistently hard, austere, and lean. Generally I love what this great terroir, surrounded by such famous names as Angelus and the two Beausejours, can produce. Moreover, there is no doubting the genius of the two men responsible for this wine, Nicolas Thienpont and Stephane Derenoncourt. Nevertheless, I was surprised to see just how hard, austere, and angular this wine is. It is hard to find any charm or deep, concentrated, ripe fruit in this muscular, structured, forbiddingly tannic, and seemingly out of balance wine. Feb 2009, www.robertparker.com