Like their Ouzelois, coming from old vines in a rocky site, the Rotys' 2006 Marsannay Boivin boasts pure purple plum and dark cherry fruit transparent to fruit pit, chalk and iodine mineral notes on a refined palate, and leading to a long, savory, lip-smacking finish. This exemplifies the combination of concentration and energy with lift and vivacity that make so many 2006s hard to resist, but while I would relish it from the word "go," it harbors plenty of fine-grained tannin to go with its kinetics and its reserves of fresh fruit, so I would not be surprised it if were worth following for 7-8 years. Philippe Roty is among the many growers to assert that under-ripe fruit rather than rot was what really drove his 2006 selection process. "But, hail or no hail, I do a strict triage regardless; and besides" he notes with a laugh, "it hails every year in at least one part of Marsannay." He picked in a relative hurry the last week of September, because "as far as I'm concerned, above 13% potential alcohol you have surmaturite, and that's not good." Besides, like the Mugneret sisters and a considerable number of other top-notch growers, Roty favors routinely – if only slightly – chaptalizing his entire range to promote longer and, he believes, flavor- and texture-enhancing fermentation. (While I have mentioned in the text of my tasting notes those wines that are part of the personal domaine of Philippe Roty and bottled under his name, I have not reflected this in the naming of the wines, as the same label is used for those as for the Domaine Joseph Roty wines and they are all vinified and aged together by the same team.) Importer: Alain Junguenet, Wines of France, Mountainside, NJ; tel. (908) 654-6173