Peat and white pepper pungently accent scents of rhubarb and blackberry in the nose of Saumoa's 2006 Clos De La Roche, which then offers a correspondingly invigorating tactile impingement, like a fine-grit sandpaper of pepper and stones swathed in richly-textured yet tart fruit. An animal dimension is just beginning to rear its handsome head, it seems, but it will take a big animal to make conspicuous waves in this viscous pool of fruit. For sheer sappy intensity, palpable sense of extract, and grip, it's hard to think of many wines of its vintage that can compare with this. Will it gain refinement with time in bottle? Certainly nobody able to acquire any should anticipate fewer than ten or a dozen years of excitement. "There was too much fruit" on the vines in 2006, opines Mounir Saouma, "and at the same time too much tannin in the fruit." Early pickers therefore, in his opinion, risked getting "lots of primary flavors, but wines that weren't serious. So we started the aging process asking ourselves how we will make this wine less tannic and more serious. After malolactic," which is always late here, "the wines changed completely. But the bigger mistake in 2006 was to bottle early" - something which also never happens at this address - "because the wines needed some time on their lees to extract sweetness and depth, and for all of their elements to come together." The results this year here are spectacular, and need not shy from comparison with their very different 2005 predecessors. Note that with a few significant exceptions there are usually only 1-2 barriques (25-50 cases) of any given Lucien Le Moine wine. Also, despite the number of them I tasted, that did not comprise by any means the entire collection (a circumstance I have taken pains to remedy with 2007). For further details on Le Moine's proprietors and methodology - which, once again this year, included a significant amount of vinification with stems - consult my report in issue 171. Importer: Vintus, Pleasantville, NY; tel. (919) 769-3000