Here the fruit profile is slightly riper but loses no sense of freshness or expressiveness with both earth and spice nuances that add aromatic depth and this depth continues onto the rich, full, vibrant and nicely powerful flavors that possess excellent volume yet despite the size, this is actually quite refined with the best phenolic ripeness to this point. In a word, terrific and definitely recommended. Tasted: Jan 01, 2008 Score: 90-93 Drink: 2016+ Comments: Sweet spot Outstanding! Issue 29

The always forthright and direct Yves Confuron (who is also the régisseur at Domaine de Courcel in Pommard), describes 2006 as "a much better vintage than some people are giving it credit for. The floraison occurred between the 10th and 15th of June and then there was a serious heat wave that lasted until the last week of July where there was some hail, particularly in Gevrey. The véraison was a bit later than usual, occurring around the 18th of August, which itself was cool and relatively humid if not actually rainy. I was concerned because even though the grapes were slowly adding sugar, phenolic ripening essentially stopped. Thankfully September was perfect and jump started the phenolic ripening again. We began picking on September 22nd and because the weather was quite stable, we took our time and harvested over fully 9 days. Sugars were high and we essentially had no chaptalization as virtually everything was picked at or above 13%. As always, we used 100% stems in the vinification and because 2006 produced classic wines, the tannins are quite fine, indeed in my view even finer than in 2001." Because the Confuron wines are always bottled without fining or filtration, the élevage here is necessarily long and the '05s were not bottled until August. As I have mentioned before, the Confuron style is for crafting old school burgs (they don't even own a destemmer) with long maceration times and almost two years in barrel. However, if you like the style, this is one of the very best addresses around and I found both their '05s and '06s to be extraordinarily good. Allen Meadows, Burghound