2006 Gevrey les Combottes
By Domaine Leroy
2006 Gevrey les Combottes from Domaine Leroy, Burgundy, France
The beguiling 2006 Gevrey les Combottes from Domaine Leroy stands as a testament to the exceptional terroir of Burgundy. Navigating through Leroy's illustrious portfolio, this vintage conveys a symphony of complexity and finesse synonymous with the domaine's venerated status.
Remarkable Resilience: A Year of Contrast
In Burgundy, the 2006 vintage emerged triumphantly resilient in the face of testing weather conditions, which presented vignerons with predicaments aplenty. Yet, with astute viticultural prowess, Domaine Leroy sculpted a creation that thrives with vibrancy and robust sophistication. The precision in managing delicate climatic balance this year has been critical in distinguishing the 2006 Gevrey les Combottes.
Investment Worthy: A Vintage With Poise and Pedigree
An illumination of the patchwork Burgundian climates, this expression is one that unfolds gracefully with age. Deeply woven with layers of red fruits, earthy undertones and the signature hint of game, it bespeaks its pedigree. The wine's structural integrity and eloquent tannins suggest a voyage with potential for remarkable evolution – a true gem for fine wine investors.
With Domaine Leroy's reputation for exceptional winemaking, aligning one’s portfolio with such a wine means not only embracing the unique character of 2006 but securing an artefact of enological majesty.
Concluding Opulence: The Hallmark of Burgundian Elegance
In summing up the allure of the 2006 Gevrey les Combottes from Domaine Leroy, one must acknowledge its place among oenological nobility. Endowed with Domaine Leroy’s signature meticulous care and the beneficence of Burgundian soil, this vintage commands respect both at the table and in the cellar. It is a quintessential example of investment-worthy burgundy that epitomises both region and year.
Current market price
$146,790.00
12x75cl
Highest score
91
POP score
8018.18
Scores and tasting notes
Fresh red raspberry and cherry are joined by saline, alkaline, slightly sweaty notes in the nose of the Leroy 2006 Gevrey-Chambertin Les Combottes. This saturates the palate ripe and with impressive cut and freshness, but also considerable bitterness and a more obvious tanninity than in any of the other wines in this collection. Fresh berries and mineral salts combine for a penetrating and impressively sweetly-ripe finish, but right now this wine comes off as just a bit muscle-bound and over-determined in structure for the nature of its fruit. It would be one to revisit in 2010 or 2011. The results achieved by Lalou Bize-Leroy in 2006 are all the more notable in view of the misgivings she expressed early on about this vintage. (And, as her reaction to 2004 demonstrates, she will not shy away from declassifying even her entire production if she feels that the wines are not up to their terroir pedigrees.) As voluptuously rich as are Bize-Leroy's 2006 reds, they preserve the sense of buoyancy and elegance common to so many of the standouts of this vintage, and one's gums will not come away fatigued by the strength of underlying tannin or the near-hyper-concentration displayed by her – to be sure awesome – 2005s. As every year, these wines represent meticulous vine manicure; miniscule yields ("above all regulated by severe pruning, not triage," Bize-Leroy emphasizes); and fidelity to biodynamic methods and metaphysics; and were bottled in the second December following the harvest. Despite their winsomeness, they have long life expectancies. Since, however, I have very little experience of their predecessors as they have matured, I have confined my prognostication to a few isolated and very general comments in the tasting notes that follow. Note that I have included as well under the heading "Leroy" the wines of Madame Bize-Leroy's Domaine d'Auvenay – its cellars located outside Saint-Romain – which now encompass two appellations in red, since inevitably when information is being sought about these wines, and even often when they are described, it is under the name "Leroy." Importer: Martine’s Wines. Novato, CA; tel. (415) 883-040
David Schildknecht - The Wine Advocate, 21 December 2009