From just above the Clos St.-Denis comes the Lignier 2005 Morey-St.-Denis Les Chaffots. This displays penetrating, scintillating high-toned aromas of distilled cherry, almond extract, vanilla, pistachio, and rowan berry. It offers a refined palate, intense fruits and spices, and then, beneath this a vivid sense of chalk dust and wet stone. Here, too, I detect no reason to defer the pleasure of pulling corks for more than a few years, indeed I wonder whether this will have a period of dormancy at all.
There is a distressing cloud hanging over this venerable estate because Hubert Lignier and the American widow of his son, Romain, have been unable to agree on pooling their resources, with the result that two sets of 2006s were vinified (and the 2005s may end up being sold under two different labels). The 2005s I tasted had been drawn earlier in the day as approximations to the final blends.
Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990.