From a less well-known neighbor of Serpentieres (from which the domaine will have wine beginning with the 2006 vintage), a 2005 Savigny-les-Beaune Les Gravains smells of mulberry, game and toasted nuts, offers a bright fresh black fruit intensity along with persistent gaminess and nuttiness on the palate, and finishes with gripping concentration of tartly-skinned blackberry and mulberry, toasted walnut bitterness, and iodine and set stone minerality. This should make a good investment for ten or more years for those who like Pinot strong on animal and mineral character.
A Becky Wassserman Selection (various importers), Le Serbet, Beaune; fax 011-33-3-80-24-29-70.