2006 Domaine Vincent Dureuil-Janthial Rully La Chapitre 1er Cru

The Dureuil 2006 Rully Clos de Chapitre suggests tiny purple plums and sour cherries with their pits, with cinnamon, ginger, allspice, black tea, and the tartness of fruit skin adding an invigorating sizzle to a finish full of primary fruit juiciness. Saline and richly meaty note lend savor to the palate-staining, reverberatingly interactive finish of this amazingly pure-fruited and complex 2006 Cote Chalonnaise Pinot that allies density to lift and refreshment. This originates with contract fruit, incidentally, but (as the results testify!) Dureuil calls the shots all along. Unfortunately there are only around 150 cases. But if you missed out on the 2005, consider yourself more than compensated should you acquire some of this 2006. Vincent Dureuil (for more about whom, see my report in issue 170) has again demonstrated his enormous talents in a vintage whose challenges were magnified in the commune of Rully by severe summer hail. Furthermore, rot was exacerbated throughout the Cote Chalonnaise, so the Dureuil's triage had to be especially severe (employing both a passive and a vibratory table); extraction very gentle (with no pigeage); and many wines racked off of their lees sooner than usual. Dureuil elected to filter some of them (a procedure he usually feels confident to avoid). A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93