2006 Gevrey Chambertin Aux Echezeaux Vieilles Vignes

Fourrier 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin Aux Echezeaux (from nearly 90 year-old vines) leads with a combination of game, red cherry, and effusively floral (violet, iris, peony) aromatics. Tartness of sour cherry and concentrated, salted beef stock inform a fine-grained and refreshing palate that is beautifully transparent to sustained finishing nuances of liquid floral perfume and things mineral. Once again, this bottling represents an especially refined, bright, almost delicate yet tensile Gevrey that – although situated along the Morey-St.-Denis line (just south of Charmes and Mazoyeres) – seems to look far further south toward Chambolle for its inspiration. I would anticipate its being worth following for 5-7 years. Eyebrows as well as stakes in the Burgundy-buying game were raised when the prices of certain Fourrier 2006s came out well above those of 2005. Time will of course tell whether this new positioning "sticks," but there can be no overlooking either the consistently excellent results Jean-Marie Fourrier achieves, nor the extreme paucity and remarkable quality of his two most celebrated bottlings, particularly in this vintage. Jean-Claude Fourrier – with whom I tasted the majority of his son's 2006s – told me that contrary to usual practice here, the stems were removed from all of the fruit this year, because none were really ripe (i.e. truly lignified). (For more about Fourrier's always articulately and thoughtfully expressed methods, consult my report in issue 170.) Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990