The berries on these old vines are really tiny and millerande," says Tremblay of her hailed-upon 2006 Chapelle-Chambertin, "and then they had to be sorted practically berry byberry," she adds, laughing. (Perhaps needless to say, this fruit was entirely destemmed.) Smoky black tea and peat aromas wreath ripe black cherry and cassis, and a saline, marrow-rich beef bouillon character lends deep savor on a firm yet surprisingly finely-grained palate. An impingement of pepper and faintly scratchy tannin lends invigoration to the finish, but at the expense of juiciness. I would plan to employ this impressively-concentrated Pinot selectively and follow it watchfully over the next half dozen years, mindful that its tannins might remain stubbornly in place. "Given the amount and character of tannin in 2006," reports Cecile Tremblay, "a lot of changes had to be made" in handling to guarantee extraction of pure fruit and the encouragement of depth and textural polish, notably the gentleness of both pressing and maceration. (I had to offer Tremblay – and now do my readers – an apology for stating in my detailed report in issue 171 that she and Pascal Roblet were married. That was never the case – although I am not the only person to have made this mistake – and in any event the two have now gone their separate wine ways. Tremblay crushed her most recent vintage at cellars in her home town of Vosne-Romanee.)Importer: Weygandt-Metzler, Unionville, PA; tel. (610) 486-0800

The most evolved wine in this vertical tasting, Tremblay comments that "this is the one vintage I wouldn't like to make again," observing that the fruit, impacted by hail, combined low acidity with derisory yields. Offering up aromas of dried fruits and preserved plums, the 2006 Chapelle-Chambertin Grand Cru is medium to full-bodied, firm and rather assertively structural. While some bottles may well have evolved better than this example, it's clearly the weakest vintage in the series.