2006 Nuits St Georges

Smelling and tasting of fresh cherry, smoked meat, and a marine mingling of saline and alkaline notes, the Lecheneaut 2006 Nuits-St.-Georges offers bright, persistent fruit on a palate of promising textural refinement. Hints of fruit pit bitterness combine with salinity and the tartness of fruit skin for considerable invigoration, but there is a dry spot in the back that blocks the perception of sap or juiciness. I don't think this is a temporary situation, but I'll give this well-concentrated and otherwise promising wine the benefit of the doubt and recommend revisiting it in the course of 2010. Vincent and Philippe Lecheneaut report having ended up with higher potential alcohol in their 2006 fruit than in 2005 – though not, they hasten to add, equally ripe flavors – and having accordingly performed scarcely any chaptalization, so that only a few of the wines finished at over 13%. The regimen of new wood was essentially unchanged from 2005, which I think worked to the disadvantage of a number of these 2006s, wines that – while very well made, and in some instances distinguished – suffer considerably by comparison with their immediate predecessors. Importer: Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC; tel. (202) 832-9083