2006 Domaine de Montille Pommard Les Rugiens 1er Cru

($131-$148; 50% vendange entier; this and the Taillepieds were bottled in May of 2008) Bright, full red. Highly nuanced nose combines redcurrant, tobacco, iron and flint. Quite ripe and rich, with a liqueur-like candied cherry flavor dominating today. Offers the best palate coverage of these wines to this point, finishing with suave but serious tannins and excellent length. This really calls for four or five years of cellaring. Excellent for the vintage.

Author: Stephen Tanzer

Issue: March/April 2009

A mix of sweet berry, cherry and spice flavors are integrated with the silky texture in this elegant red. The tannins lend support, in a balanced, harmonious way. Detailed finish.

Author: Bruce Sanderson

Mid ruby. Light, slightly beetrooty/stalky nose. Lots of acidity. Quite fresh and harmonious though not desperately ambitious. Even this is a bit awkward and green on the end.

Author: Jancis Robinson

The barest touch of wood frames backward and very primary yet also very pure and high-toned red pinot fruit aromas that are distinctly cool in character while introducing delicious, intense and really quite serious flavors that possess fine dry extract levels that culminate in a firm and slightly edgy finish that belies just a subtle trace of bitterness that my score assumes will round out with time in bottle.

Author: Allen Meadows

Issue: 2nd Quarter, 2008

The de Montille 2006 Pommard Les Rugiens ' which I last tasted just before its bottling ' displays site-typical rich meatiness and smoky, |ferrous| character, with abundant but reasonably fine-grained tannins and formidable grip. Dark berries and burley tobacco, peat and iodine give this a metaphorically very dark hue. It has plenty of structure, but less vivacity than the corresponding Taillepieds, and it will be interesting to see whether in the long run this proves to have more tannin that it needs to get where it's going over the next decade. I would in any event grant it a 3-4 year head start.

Author: David Schildknecht