While the Raphet Chambolle – from the lieu dit Bussieres – is nearly always their most interesting and successful village-level wine, such was not the case this year, where that honor goes to a 2006 Morey-St.-Denis. Light but healthy in color, it focuses on tart plum and cherry fruit along with a saline, broth-like meatiness. A cassis leaf-like hint of reduction wafts across the nose but subsides with aeration. Quite polished in feel – where some of the wines in this collection evinced considerable tannic roughness – and brightly refreshing, saline and pungently white peppery, it will have you licking your lips even if not at all thought-provoking. I would plan to enjoy it by 2011. The Raphet wines have always been marked by a wide divergence of quality and a reflection of conditions very much as nature presented them. The results in 2006 are relatively lightweight, with for the most part only bottlings from the characteristically top sites and vines of the domaine really asserting strong personalities (and a presumably hail-tainted and rather 1983-like village Gevrey being less than recommendable). Gerard Raphet says he picked consciously on the early side, and then quickly, boosting the alcohol levels on most wines slightly from their potentials in the low 12s. (For further information about Raphet and his sites, readers are urged to consult my report in issue 171.) Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93