Displaying more color, body, and grip than his other wines of the vintage, Fournier's 2006 Marsannay Trois Terres Vieilles Vignes – vinified 100% vendange entier – features satisfyingly juicy ripe cherry and red raspberry accented by chalk, salt and the bitterness of fruit pits, on a fine-grained palate. This finishes with an invigorating, sappy cling of fresh fruit and mineral matter. The yield of juice from these three parcels of old vines – at relatively high, windy elevation – was, says Fournier "catastrophic," but microclimate also permits this fruit to hang longer and taste riper at lower potential alcohol. I would plan on enjoying this over the next 4-5 years.
Laurent Fournier is among the numerous growers to report having done quite a bit less sorting of fruit in 2006 than he found himself compelled to do in 2007. Yields were already small in his vineyards, he explained, and further reduced by sporadic hail (as one result of which, no Gevrey was bottled) and by selection in the vineyard that could not afford to be postponed until harvest and the mobilization of sorting tables. The quality of tannins is the weak point in a number of his universally relatively light-colored and light-bodied 2006s, although Fournier stuck with what has become his normal procedure of including a certain amount of stems in the fermentation, varying with site. All but the lightest cuvee here was bottled unfiltered, in an effort to keep from drying out fruit.
A Thomas Calder Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011-33-1-46-45-15-29; Also a Cellar Door Selection, Columbia, MD; tel. (410) 309-6063
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