2006 Vosne Romanee Les Chaumes

Liger-Belair's 2006 Vosne Romanee Les Chaumes – from three parcels of old vines near where this site touches Malconsorts and Gaudichots, and accounting for a mere two barrels – smells of bitter-sweet floral perfume, mint, red berry distillates, pungent brown spices, and game. Polished in texture and with a persistent sense of wafting perfume that fits its buoyant palate presence, this represents another elegant, almost delicate and ethereal (yet, intensely-flavored) performance for the estate. In common with some of the other wines in this collection, too, the distilled and dried expressions of red fruits as well as the spiciness here lend an exotic touch that might – at least in a white wine – be chalked up to noble rot. I'm sure this will be worth following for more than half a dozen years, but am not able to prognosticate in any more meaningful way. 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