2006 Nuits St Georges

Fresh fruit, even a touch of violets on the nose. Dry and firm and a little drying on the finish. (JH)

Ripe blackcurrant aromas in the Ambroise 2006 Nuits St.-Georges lead to a palate of striking viscosity, underlain by suggestions of cooked beef and low-toned stone. This is impressively rich – its ample tannins well-covered in fruit – if a bit foursquare and short on charm. It seems certainly capable of standing up to half a dozen years in bottle, though, during which more interest and allure might emerge. ||It came as no surprise that Bertrand Ambroise would strive for ripe, concentrated, structured Pinots even in 2006, but I was amazed at the degree to which he succeeded with an approach that by his own admission was little different from that he had taken with his 2005s. Ambroise played-down a hypothesis I had begun to develop that Nuits-St.-Georges was especially favored in 2006, and added that he experienced less variability in ripeness from one Cotes de Nuits vineyard to another than was to be the case in 2007. Triage in 2006, reports Ambroise, was minimal, and performed primarily on cull under-ripe, not rot-afflicted bunches and berries. He left the young wines on their lees as long as he felt able, in order to retain a sense of freshness and vivacity, he said, as much as to enhance what was already manifestly going to be an unusual amount of body and palpable density for the vintage. (For further details concerning Ambroise's general methodology, readers are referred to my report in issue 171. As in other instances, I have not noted distinguished in their formal descriptions between estate wines and those Ambroise farms on contract.) Wine Advocate.December, 2009