Boillot's 2006 Pommard Les Croix Noires – from 60-70 year old vines in a tiny cru with only a few proprietors, wedged between Fremiers and the village – smells of blackberry, cedar, and smoked meat. With bittersweet black fruit and fruit pit concentration and Pommard-typical smoky and somehow seemingly ferrous pungency, this saturates the palate, spreading fine-grained tannins in the wake of its mineral- and spice-tinged fruit. A serious, well-structured Pommard cru, it should be worth following for the better part of a decade, and is probably best not revisited until 2011. I'm at a loss to explain why Boillot's Pommards as a group proved significantly more attractive as well as accessible than his Volnay – especially given that the latter commune seems generally to have been spared more of the rain-engendered problems of the 2006 vintage – so it will be interesting to compare them in a subsequent vintage. Pierre Boillot (grandson of Lucien) vinified and marketed together until 2003 with his slightly older brother Louis (who now shares facilities with his wife Ghislaine Barthod, and most of the same appellations as Pierre, and on whose outstanding wines I reported in issue 170 and again in this issue). They then separated their shares of inheritance, which include equally prime acreage in both Cotes, thanks to Lucien having long ago left his family's Volnay estate (now Domaine Henri Boillot) to stake his own claim in Gevrey. My first visit to taste here convinced me that this address and Pierre Boillot's talent should be known to all Burgundy lovers. Pierre Boillot lays great store by lees enrichment, never bottling before the second spring, and then without filtration.Importer: Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant, Berkeley, CA; tel. (510) 524-1524