2006 CHÂTEAU CLIMENS 1er Cru Classé Barsac

Proprietor Berenice Lurton continues to turn out one of the utterly profound wines from the Barsac Sauternes region. The 2006 is not up there with their perfect 2001, but it is a beautiful wine and stands out as one of the top wines of 2006. Medium gold, with a slightly more advanced color than I am used to seeing in a young Climens, the wine displays waxy honeyed pineapple and delicate marmalade and citrus notes with a restrained use of new oak. The wine cuts a full-bodied swath across the palate with terrific acidity, freshness, and moderate sweetness. This is a beauty, but perhaps on a much faster evolutionary track than some of their greatest vintages.   94/100

What a meticulously managed vineyard this is! Just how well Bérénice Lurton and her team did only became clear once I was at the UGC tasting. As usual, Bérénice had not assembled, so only permitted tasting at the château where I saw five lots, two of them `micro assemblage%u2019. Overall, they showed great purity of fruit, exceptional length, richness and freshness, allied to great complexity and more homogeneity as between the lots than is usual. The average is 13.4 alc with 150 grams residual sugar, reflecting a vintage tendency for fermentations to finish with less alcohol and more sweetness than usual. One of the great Climens for sure. From 2012.   *****