2006 Domaine du Comte Liger-Belair Nuits-Saint-Georges Les Cras 1er Cru

The newly acquired 2006 Nuits-St.-Georges Les Cras – whose fruit, Liger-Belair relates, its previous owner blended with the Les Lavieres as Nuits villages – seems to reflect the stony austerity of its site, not only in overtly chalky suggestions, but in firm tannin suffusing its spiced red fruits and roasted meats. Faintly resinous and sweaty overtones as well as the faintly abrasive synergy of tannin and new wood in the finish render this place a question mark over this in my mind, although the wine's sheer persistence is certainly impressive. It would be something of a gamble to cellar. Liger-Belair says the soil here reminds him of Reignots. 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