2006 Coteaux du Languedoc Prestige Rouge

Puech-Haut’s 2006 Coteaux du Languedoc Saint-Drezery – due to be bottled late this Spring – smells and tastes of high-toned and lightly-cooked cherry, licorice, and vanilla, with rather bitter-sweet resinous and toasted nut notes carrying through to its polished, creamy palate and into a finish of considerable length and refinement. This looks set to evolve harmoniously – and hopefully to add complexity – over at least the next 5-7 years. Gerard Bru employs oenologist Claude Gros and – at least for a time – numbered Michel Roland among his consultants. This might strike most proprietors as over-kill. And that is also how I am tempted to describe some of the more ambitious cuvees that emerge from his showy cellar and 250 acres of vines near Saint-Drezery and at the southeastern edge of the Pic Saint-Loup sub-appellation. Imported by Jeffrey Davies Signature Selections, Bordeaux; tel. 011 33 556 081 954