2002 Domaine Hubert Lignier Clos de la Roche Grand Cru

Deep red-ruby. Vibrant, highly nuanced nose combines small red berries, minerals, smoked meat, mocha, underbrush and mint. Sweet, dense and sappy; boasts impressive volume without excess weight. Not a super-fleshy style but this has wonderful fruit. Very long on the aftertaste, but perhaps less subtle today than the Combottes. But there's more wine here. At once typical and strong. This is a no-brainer: buy it if you can find it and afford it. Lignier is high on the 2001 Clos de la Roche, and also singled out the '99 and '93 as two of his favorites over the past decade-plus.

Strong impressions of crushed, very spicy red and black fruit aromas and very ripe soil notes marry beautifully with suave, fat, sweet, relatively round and elegant flavors that offer superb density and outstanding finishing complexity. There is good if not incredible power, exceptionally good length and perhaps the best acid/fruit balance of any of these '02s and as there often is with this wine, this has that "wow" factor going for it.