2005 Nuits St Georges La Charmotte

The 2005 Nuits-St.-Georges La Charmotte offers somewhat reduced aromas of wood smoke and well aged game, along with ripe cherry and cherry pit. Tart fruit skin and high-toned inner-mouth esters, ashen smokiness, and rather somber notes of moss, forest floor and wet stone persist into a finish that approaches bitter concentration of fruit skin and mineral. This is highly impressive in its relatively dark, austere way, and would be fascinating to revisit in a few years. In this his fourth vintage, and (like his cousin at Comte Liger-Belair in Vosne-Romanee) young, ambitious in the pursuit of quality, well-traveled, and in the process of taking back family property from rental and negociant contracts, Thibault Liger-Belair is ensconced in deep, ancient, and bitterly-cold cellars in the center of Nuits-St.-Georges. He has begun pursuing a biodynamic regimen in his vineyards and has inaugurated a rigorously-controlled negociant arm (its wines labeled “Thibault Liger-Belair Successeurs” and designated “S” in my listings). He says he approached 2005 with great caution lest the wines lose polish and finesse to over-extraction of tannins. Certainly the results have included some very powerful and formidably structured wines. Low sulfur and a significant inclusion of whole clusters (“depending on the circumstances and site,” he says, “- I have no system”) are among other prominent features of Liger-Belair’s approach in 2005. Also recommended: 2005 Aloxe-Corton La Toppe au Vert ($64.00; 86+?). Importer: Vineyard Brands, Birmingham, AL; tel. (205) 980 8802