2006 Domaine Daniel Bocquenet Echézeaux Grand Cru

Bocquenet's 2006 Echezeaux certainly shows its oak – as vanilla, caramel, and brown spices – but this fits the sweet, lightly confitured character of the wine's cassis and black cherry as well as the pastry-like sense of buttery texture and enveloping richness. Overtones of mint and sweet floral perfume add allure. The chew of tannin that reveals the wine's structure hits you only in the finish, along with suggestions of forest floor and peppery pungency. This is less charming than the corresponding Vosne, but probably destined to be worth following for longer-term, for 5-7 years. Bocquenet (about whom I wrote more in issue 170) has a habit of excelling in difficult vintages while retaining a regimen of relatively aggressive extraction and 100% new wood. His approach did not let him or his customers down in 2006, and negociant demand was still strong when the wines were in barrel, so Bocquenet was able to readily sell off any lots or barrels he chose to, in order to enhance the quality of what he eventually bottled himself. He thinks his 2006s – which spent from September, 2007 through late Spring 2008 assembled in tank – have both more charm and, surprisingly, more fat than his 2005s, and I would not disagree, although they are less clear or complex. A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93