Predictably displaying its sheer ripeness rather obviously, the Pousse d'Or 2006 Corton Bressandes concentrates lightly-cooked dark cherry and plum, but also meat stock and bitter-sweet herbs. Plush on the palate, and with its tannic structure well-covered by rich layers of fruit and meat, this finishes with persistent bitter-sweet concentration, but a certain opacity and absence of refreshment as well as a pungent, briny and animal hint of sweat. Taken on its terms, here is a wine to cellar, but I would want to revisit it in, say, 2011, before trying to pronounce on the value of holding it for an extended period. It's certainly another of those Pousse d'Or 2006s that appears quite likely to evolve in a gamey and animal direction, in which case those favoring sheer richness and sweetness of fruit might be sorry they did not drink it up sooner.
Patrick Landanger reports having fermented longer and worked harder to extract flavor from his 2006 crop, and while the results are undeniably concentrated, on the occasion of my tasting, several suffered a bit from opacity and tannic severity.
Importer: Langdon-Shiverick Imports, Cleveland, OH; tel. (216) 861 6800 and a Peter Vezan Selection, Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93