2006 Nuits St Georges Les Lavieres

From a tiny parcel of 75 year old vines below Les Murgers, Comte Liger-Belair's 2006 Nuits-St.-Georges Aux Lavieres displays both some of the exotic spice and some of the delicacy that informed the estate's non premier-cru Vosne bottlings. Musky, narcissus-like floral perfume and smoked meat add to the wine's aromatic interest, and fresh red currant and raspberry give a juicy, bright account of themselves all the way through to a lip-smacking finish, underlain by suggestions of chalk and stone. This sleek and texturally-refined Pinot is not what you will expect from Nuits-St.-Georges but represents a delightful, relatively delicate delight probably best savored over the next 4-5 years. Louis-Michel Liger-Belair reported higher potential alcohol levels this year than in 2005, but also maintains that the nature of the ambient yeasts in 2006 accounted for a thankfully inefficient conversion, so that finished alcohols were not noticeably higher. Triage in his cellars, he maintains, was and will in future vintages remain "two to three percent," thanks to restriction of yields and meticulous vine management. Liger-Belair remains a proponent of gentle extraction but high levels of new wood. What I misleadingly announced in issue 170 as "a new negociant side of the business" is in fact an arrangement whereby Liger-Belair himself farms around 15 acres that had previously been tended by a grower who once enjoyed a share-cropping arrangement with Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair (during the long period when their wines were pledged to Bouchard). Half of the acreage in question yields Bourgogne and is genuinely sold as a negociant project, but the rest will be treated to the domaine's vine-papering, biodynamic regimen, including the horse plowing of whose revival they were among the earliest and most conspicuous proponents. Liger-Belair reminds me, however, that it will take time for the effect of this attention to be felt. Beginning with this vintage also, all of the Liger-Belair monopole La Romanee and all of their Vosne Reignots are estate-bottled, none being sold any longer to Bouchard. A Becky Wasserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet; fax 011-333-80-24-29-70