A 2006 Pommard Premier Cru from a small traditional domaine, now entering its third decade in the magnum format, represents one of the genuinely rare categories of mature red Burgundy available in quantity outside of major auction houses and estate releases. Domaine Jean Michel Gaunoux’s traditionally structured, firmly tannic approach to Pommard Premier Cru production means that the 2006, far from being over-mature, is likely approaching the beginning of its optimal drinking window having spent nearly two decades in the magnum’s ideal conditions. The 2006 Burgundy vintage was uneven across the appellation, but for traditionally-made wines from small estates in Pommard, where the village’s naturally firmer tannin structure provided protection against the vintage’s challenges, the results were often considerably better than the overall vintage assessment suggests.

Pommard Les Perrières in the magnum format from 2006 provides collectors with something genuinely unusual: a mature Côte de Beaune Premier Cru in a format that preserves freshness and structural integrity over a long ageing period, from a producer whose traditional winemaking style produces wines that require and reward patience. The Les Perrières site’s stony, mineral character tends to produce wines of greater precision and structural definition than the broader, more generous Pommard Premier Crus of Rugiens and Epenots, giving the 2006 an additional margin of freshness and mineral tension that should have held well through nearly two decades in magnum.

Mature magnums of small-domaine Pommard Premier Cru are a genuinely rare market category. The combination of a Premier Cru site of real distinction, the magnum format’s ideal ageing conditions, and the long time in bottle from a vintage that produced wines of genuine quality at Gaunoux makes this an interesting proposition for collectors who wish to drink a well-aged Côte de Beaune Premier Cru without the uncertainty and premium of auction-bought mature Burgundy from well-known names.

Mature garnet with orange-brick highlights and a complex, fully developed nose of dried cherry, iron, leather, truffle, forest floor, dried herbs and the savoury complexity of nearly twenty years of bottle age in the larger format. Medium-bodied with resolved tannins, excellent residual acidity and a long, complex, mineral, savoury finish. Drink now through 2033.