2006 Clos de Tart Grand Cru

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: Tasted at the pre-dinner vertical to mark Sylvain Pitiot's retirement from the domaine, the 2006 Clos de Tart Grand Cru has a deep, intense nose with plenty of dark berry fruit (blackberry and boysenberry), mixed with cedar and licorice scents. Saturnine at first, it responds to aeration, opening up with minimal encouragement and gaining more and more intensity. The palate is what you might call a bold and brassy style of Clos de Tart - upfront fruit, muscular, forthright tannin and enormous depth on the finish that fans out gloriously. Think of a blast of trumpets in the Albert Hall and you've got this wine. Immense! - Neil Martin, Okt. 2015

Allen Meadows' Burghound: A moderate dollop of new wood frames very ripe yet airy and elegant black raspberry and cherry aromas that are exceptionally fresh and dissolve into rich, suave and very pure full-bodied flavors that are wonderfully seductive as they just ooze dry extract that renders the otherwise very firm tannins almost invisible on the mouth coating, concentrated and strikingly long finish. While this is certainly a big wine, it is actually quite refined and elegant, indeed very much in the style of the '01 as Pitiot suggests. It doesn't quite have the sheer depth and incredible delineation of the '01 but this is high class juice all the same that is built to age. - Allen Meadows, Jan. 2009

Vinous: The 2006 Clos de Tart Grand Cru was picked September 27–30 at 26hl/ha, at 13.7° alcohol, and offers a stark contrast to the 2005. It has long been a much broodier proposition, showing more black fruit than red, and almost Bordeaux-like in terms of its light cedar tincture, although here there is less of the licorice element. The tight-fisted, introspective palate demands coaxing from the glass. There is plenty of sinew here, though I wonder whether that comes from Nature or from extended skin maceration – I suspect the latter. This is a bold and demanding Clos des Tart, though I am less enthusiastic than in my previous notes, since the tannins seem to override the terroir more than I originally expected. Tasted at a private Clos de Tart dinner in London. - Neil Martin, Feb. 2019